Possessing
by SplendentGoddess
Summary: Living together for a whole year now, Kagome and Inuyasha have settled into a nice routine, but they both secretly wish they could be more than just friends. Sequel to Possession! Come see how life has been treating our favorite hanyou and miko!
1. Chapter 1

Blanket Disclaimer:

Inuyasha, and the characters therein, are the property of Rumiko Takahashi. I am in no way affiliated with Takahashi, or VIZ Productions.

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Hello! And welcome to this year's Halloween fic. You've all been wanting it, so here it is. The continuation of Possession! In keeping with my usual style, this year's story takes place one year later, but don't worry, you guys haven't missed any of the _good_ stuff. In fact, we're right on time.

And just a quick reminder for those who might have forgotten. This is a deliberately fake Americanized version of Japan, so there will be things that are blatantly American while other things are undoubtedly Japanese and that is not in error. Enjoy!

Possessing

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Chapter 1

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Scrolling through current news articles about youkai sightings on his computer, Inuyasha sighed near inaudibly as he chose to ignore some obvious clickbait regarding what you _won't believe happened next_ when some idiot went for a dip in a pond known to contain a family of kappa.

 _That's what he gets for invading the kappa's territory_ , he thought, as he scrolled past the 'article' to see if there was anything more important worth reading.

Inuyasha had told Kagome that she didn't need to buy him a new computer, that he didn't want her spending too much of her money on him, but as she'd pointed out, a computer would be his best...practically his _only_ way to connect to the rest of the world. Her family had since come over to visit more than once, after she'd gotten him to agree to go to dinner at their house on the night of the new moon, before then also agreeing to be dragged out of the house on all new moon nights, but visiting with her family or having dinner at one of the small restaurants in town one night a month hardly qualified as truly socializing with all of mankind.

So after a couple of months he'd caved and let her get him his brand new laptop that now sat on his childhood writing desk. He hadn't yet braved joining any social media sites or anything like that. How could he get to know people, get close to them, become friends, while keeping a secret like being a hanyou? But of course he couldn't tell anyone what he was. Unless they thought it was role play…? But the whole idea seemed more complicated than it was worth, so for the time being he was content to just browse the Internet and lurk in the shadows, reading about different people's lives from anything and everything he could find so he could at least get a feel for what the rest of the world was truly like. Both the good and the bad.

It hadn't taken him long to learn how to use the new technology, either, since he'd had a computer back in the late '70s, shortly before his mother's death. Of course, there was truly no comparison between one of those dinosaurs and a modern-day laptop, but he at least already knew what a computer _was_ , and he'd already learned how to type, which was extra difficult with his claws but as Kagome had rightly pointed out, if women with long acrylic nails could type then it made perfect sense that he could, too, after getting the hang of it. He'd had to relearn how to hold his fingers since his laptop's keyboard was different than the clunky thing his original computer had had, but he'd picked it up pretty quickly.

Getting ready to click on another link, a woof from behind him drew his attention and he turned to face the animal lying on his bed.

"What?" he asked Shiro, the white akita-mix Kagome had come home with as a puppy less than a month after her discovering his identity and agreeing to let him live with her. Getting a dog hadn't been planned; someone had been giving away puppies out front of the grocery store and Kagome just hadn't been able to resist.

Shiro woofed again. Lifting an eyebrow before cocking his ear, Inuyasha listened for a moment before turning back to the dog that was a spitting image of what his own dog form would probably look like, if he had one. Aside from the tail, you'd never know Shiro wasn't a purebred. He looked just like an akita inu except his fluffy tail didn't curl back up on top of his back and instead hung down when at rest. Most of the time it was wagging though because he was such a happy dog.

"That's not her car, it's one of the neighbors," Inuyasha said then, because Shiro was anxious for Kagome to get home.

So was he, but unlike the pup, he could tell the difference between different car engines. Shiro would get the hang of it in time. He was only barely one year old; he still had a _lot_ to learn.

Turning back to his computer, Inuyasha again almost clicked on the next link, but then this time _his_ ears were the ones tingling, and he turned them both to the window. Shiro perked back up as well at the sight.

"Okay, this time it's her," Inuyasha said a second later, and barking again, Shiro happily leapt from the bed and made a beeline for the living room, Inuyasha hot on his heels as both the pure dog and the man-dog hybrid excitedly ran down the hall and down the stairs, the former just making a sharp right to come to a stop in front of the front door, waiting, while the latter continued to run in a large clockwise circle through the living room and dining room until ending up in the kitchen.

Outside, beyond the front door, beyond the front yard and even beyond their cul-de-sac, Kagome was still a couple of minutes away, but grinning, the miko could already visualize her two boys both eagerly anticipating her arrival home. Inuyasha had told her plainly just how good his ears were, and from how far away he could hear her coming. There was no sneaking up on that hanyou.

Which, as far as Kagome was concerned, was just one of the many things she loved about him.

 _I definitely don't have to worry about installing a security alarm,_ she thought with a giggle.

Not that she had all that much worth stealing. She might be a millionaire, but if she wanted to _stay_ a millionaire long enough to be set for life then she needed to stick to her budget. And of course having an extra mouth to feed... _two_ if you counted Shiro...meant that her budget had been stretched a little thinner than originally planned before deciding to register as a reservist warrior miko with the Spiritual Forces, not that money had been her _only_ motivation. She was a miko, after all, and one living on her own, not bound to her family shrine. A shrine which still had three powerful reiki using residents in her absence. Plus her hometown had not already had its own reservist warrior miko, so it'd been a position with the Spiritual Forces in need of filling. Warrior miko were few and far between, after all.

Some reiki users made a career of active duty, like the itinerant houshi who regularly patrolled the forests just outside border towns like hers and dealt with any small youkai issues that might arise, while the taijiya had local branches in every border town as well as the big cities and were always on call to deal with common problems where reiki would not be required, like infestations of lowly brainless things such as demonic insects or rodents. Since between the two of them the taijiya and houshi usually had everything under control most miko did their spiritual duties by being miko for their shrines, or performing purification rituals for other people, and in the event of all hell breaking loose their task would be to help maintain the spiritual barriers at their shrines to make the holy grounds a safe haven for fleeing humans. A miko could only become a warrior miko if she had no duties to a specific shrine that would need to take precedence in a wide scale attack.

In Kagome's case, she'd known the rest of her family could take care of that end of things at the Higurashi shrine. Now that she had a car, because reliable transportation was a must, Kagome had thought the matter over carefully and she'd decided that, besides the paycheck definitely being a plus considering her increased budgetary needs, it was also her _duty_ to become a warrior miko, for more reasons than one, and her family had supported her decision.

So had Inuyasha.

She'd actually decided to do this after getting to know the hanyou, because besides the extra money coming in handy, and feeling it was her duty to not ignore the gifts the kami had given her, she had also once seen first hand on the news how some _other_ miko might just automatically use deadly force when it wasn't warranted, just purifying the youkai to be done with it, and she _wouldn't_. She wouldn't kill an attacking youkai unless it was absolutely necessary.

After getting to know Inuyasha, really, truly getting to know him, and confirming for herself that he really wasn't all that different from a human outside of his appearance and the occasional subtle canine trait here or there, as she'd always personally believed was the case when it came to hanyou, Kagome had started to really think about the plight that hanyou and youkai faced in their world. As far as human society was concerned, youkai were just barely above mortal animals, and dealing with youkai was typically akin to animal control. But while there were countless species of lower youkai that really _were_ animals, there were also intelligent people-like youkai, both hanyou and daiyoukai alike, and society viewed them as animals, too, albeit dangerous ones.

Fortunately, for everyone involved, the higher youkai of the world had all agreed to an unofficial treaty of sorts, formed centuries ago, shortly after humans had learned that reiki users didn't need to remain pure and that in fact reiki was hereditary. That discovery had shifted the balance of power. There were suddenly enough spiritual humans to pose a serious threat, and so knowing that continuing to threaten humans could prove deadly the higher youkai, along with the miko and houshi of the time, had agreed to leave each other alone and stick to their own parts of the world. It was an unwritten agreement that humans as a whole still abided by today, which was why there were vast quantities of wild land zoned as youkai habitation where human development was not permitted, but that didn't stop the occasional idiot from wandering deep into the forest and becoming some random youkai's lunch, and likewise the occasional lower youkai might still wander into town for whatever reason, hence the continued need for taijiya and trained reiki users.

Fortunately, daiyoukai didn't care if humans killed lower beastly youkai any more than humans cared that youkai killed and ate mortal animals out in the forest. Killing a lower youkai that'd wandered into town put them in no risk of starting some kind of war between the humans and the youkai. Actually, even killing a higher youkai put humans at no risk of retaliation, because the other higher youkai would merely look at it as a disgrace that the dead one had managed to get itself killed by 'lowly' humans.

Even so, intelligent but harmless youkai that merely liked to mess with humans, like kitsune, were usually captured or chased away without injury. Classified as animals or not, most people couldn't just butcher as an animal something that could look human and carry on a conversation with you. There were also 'youkai rights' and 'youkai cruelty' laws on the books that even protected the lower beastly youkai, just the same as there were for mortal animals, so everything that was illegal to do with mortal animals, like dog fighting, was also illegal to do with youkai animals. The problem was when it came to a wild beastly youkai in the city that could be likened to a mountain lion that'd wandered into a human neighborhood, where Animal Control, or in this case the Spiritual Forces, needed to be called in to deal with it, and the moral issue of whether or not to try to capture the beast alive and release it back into the wild, as was Kagome's obvious preference, or just kill it.

The fact that not everyone shared Kagome's personal views in that regard, including some warrior miko, had been another deciding factor in joining the Spiritual Forces. After she'd looked into it and confirmed that her hometown still had no local warrior miko of its own – which made sense considering her family shrine was the town's only shrine so if there _had_ been one the woman would've had to have moved there – and without one it meant that in the event of a miko's aid being needed one would have to be called in from the city, Kagome had realized what all that meant for her community. That delay could cost lives, for one thing, and plus after what she'd seen on the news a few years ago, when a miko from the city _had_ been called in to aid her hometown, Kagome knew she didn't want _that_ particular miko coming into town on assignment ever again if she could help it.

And she could help it.

Youkai lives mattered too, and she would only kill a youkai if she'd already exhausted all other options.

As a daughter of the Higurashi shrine and a powerful miko born and raised in that community, it was her duty to be its protector. She probably would have ended up registering as a warrior miko even if she'd never won the lottery and never bought her house or met Inuyasha, but after meeting and getting to know the inu-hanyou, how could she _not?_

Pulling up in the driveway, Kagome parked the car and got out, then reached in the back and grabbed her bow and quiver full of arrows. Being a reservist warrior miko meant that one weekend a month she had to participate in training to keep her skills sharp, but fortunately the nearest training center was in the big city only a half hour away so she didn't need to spend the night away from home, going back and forth both days. She had to be back at the training center tomorrow morning, but at least she was home for the evening. It was actually good to have something to go do for a day since not having a job, while wonderful in the sense that she didn't need to work at a job she didn't _like_ , could also make the days long and boring.

 _Of course, nothing is boring with these two to keep me company!_ Kagome thought as she opened the front door only to be glomped by a four-legged dog with a two-legged one standing there visibly resisting the temptation to hug her as well.

She momentarily wondered if it was just the dog in him, or if it was his human side that wanted to hug her just like she wanted to hug _him_ , but quickly shaking the thought free, Kagome crouched down and let Shiro drench her face in doggie kisses, ignoring the ache in her heart as she wished Inuyasha would chime in with a joke like 'Hey, save some for me!'

 _Damn it Kagome, get a hold of your feelings before he senses something's wrong!_

Smiling brightly, she shifted her eyes up to meet the smirking gaze of the hanyou who was doing his best not to laugh as Shiro covered her in saliva.

"Did you put him up to this?" she managed to ask without accidentally getting dog tongue in her mouth.

"Who me?" Inuyasha asked, batting his eyelashes innocently.

That had Kagome laughing, and dropping her bow and arrows as she wrapped her arms around Shiro. "Okay! Okay! I missed you, too!" she said to the akita mix.

Chuckling, Inuyasha picked up Kagome's fallen quiver and bow and brought them into the living room. The miko finally extracted herself from her dog after another moment, and slipping off her sandals, followed the hanyou to the couch where he'd sat her weapon. There she paused, mouth agape, her eyes wide in surprise as she caught sight of the dining room table in the adjacent room, already set for dinner.

"What's all this…?" she half whispered, half gasped as she followed him into the dining room and took in the sight of the steaming bowls of oden sitting innocently at her and Inuyasha's established places at the table.

It wasn't a surprise that Inuyasha knew her favorite food dish was oden. It'd come up long ago during their process of getting to know each other. But she knew for a fact they hadn't had any fishcakes _or_ daishi broth on hand. She'd been planning on going to the store in a couple of days.

Inuyasha just shrugged, trying to play nonchalant even as a light blush rose on his cheeks.

"It wasn't hard to follow a recipe I found online," he said with a shrug. "We didn't have everything, but your mom was more than happy to run the ingredients over. She offered to help me cook it, but I did it myself."

Kagome just stared for a moment, unsure of what to say, before finally just settling on, "Thank you. That was really sweet of you."

Add that to the list of things she loved about him. And on top of his thoughtfulness, from the smell of things, the man could cook!

"Better be careful, or else I'll have you cooking dinner for me every day that I come home from training."

"That would not be a burden."

Their eyes locked for a moment, and Kagome found herself wondering not for the first time if the feelings he seemed to have for her were as real as the feelings she had for him. She wished she could muscle up the courage to just _talk_ with him about it. One of these days, she would need to, she knew, but not today.

Then something else occurred to her, and she chuckled.

"You called my mom? You asked her to run over ingredients?"

He looked even more embarrassed, but that didn't stop him from sitting down at his spot at the head of the table – per Kagome's repeated insistence over the last several months – and gesturing for her to join him, which she did. Normally she'd have changed out of her miko robes first, but the oden smelled wonderful and she didn't want to let it get cold. Plus she was hungry!

"What of it?" he asked then, smiling when she giggled.

Taking a sip from the glass of water Inuyasha had placed beside her bowl of oden – he'd even remembered to use coasters! Although then again it _was_ his mother's dining table – she then said, "Oh nothing. I'm just remembering how terrified you were to meet my family that first new moon night after I'd told you you could stay, and how you were nervous all over again when they saw you as a hanyou for the first time. Now here you are, secretly having my mom run over with ingredients for oden while I'm gone."

"Well what can I say?" he said with a shrug. "Your mother reminds me of my own mother, so I'm comfortable around her, now."

Kagome's heart swelled at his words, and she was sure he knew how much it meant to her because there was no helping the look in her eyes as she practically started at him before he glanced up at her and she suddenly remembered to eat.

He smiled when she wasn't looking, and then taking a bite of his own food, he continued.

"It's true," he said between mouthfuls. "When you'd first told me that you'd told them about me, that you'd come clean about it because you'd already been discussing the whole 'kitsune' thing with them so your mom had been asking for updates and you hadn't wanted to lie to her, I was afraid your next words were going to be an apology that you had to ask me to leave because your family didn't want you 'harboring' a hanyou."

Kagome opened her mouth to tell him that she wouldn't have told her family if she'd feared that reaction was a possibility, and that she'd had faith that at least her mother would understand and trust her judgment in this matter, even if her grandfather didn't like it, but Inuyasha's raised hand had the miko closing her mouth, letting him continue. He wasn't usually this talkative, so if he was in a sharing mood then she knew she needed to let him.

"Then when you told me that not only did your mother understand, and even your grandfather reluctantly accepted that you'd made an honorable decision," he continued then, "and that they wanted to _meet_ me..."

Pausing, he sat his chopsticks down and met her eyes, the look in this own intense.

"I just...I don't think you can know how much it meant to me, how much it _means_ to me, that they were willing to accept me on your word. That they didn't think I was a monster. And even thinking of me as a _man_ then we're still talking about a strange man you didn't know, who'd been sneaking around trying to scare you, suddenly living in your house with you like a roommate. I expected your mother to be all 'stay away from my daughter!' not 'welcome to the family' and while it caught me off guard, how nice your mom is, it's a really good feeling now that I'm used to it."

He resumed eating for a minute, then, as did Kagome, Shiro happily sitting near the miko's feet.

"I was really proud of you, you know," she spoke up after a short amount of silence passed between them. "To agree to come with me to the shrine on that first new moon night. To come meet my family when you were at your most vulnerable."

He snorted a chuckle.

"I actually felt _safer_ going to a shrine on my human night. Nobody could purify me that way." He took another bite. "Which we've since learned only temporarily turns me human, anyway, but at the time neither of us had known what would happen if I tried to walk on holy ground as a hanyou, if I'd be purified or just repelled by an invisible barrier."

Kagome nodded her agreement.

"Now we know the local kami welcome you, and you're only repelled if my family's barriers are up. If they drop them long enough to let you in then it's fine, but you're right. At the time, for that first dinner, neither of us had known what to expect, so going on the night of the new moon, and not in your fire-rat robes, had just made sense."

She took another sip of water.

"I'm sorry it turned out we can't turn you human at will," she said after a moment, in reference to his comment about them now knowing being purified only turned him human temporarily. "You know my family and I accept you as a hanyou, but I understand wanting to be accepted by the rest of the world."

It had actually been Inuyasha's idea, originally. Kagome had been reluctant to try it because she'd known it would be painful and she hadn't wanted to hurt him, but logically speaking, she'd also known it wouldn't be fatal. As a hanyou, purifying his youki would only ever turn him human, and he'd even been mentally prepared for the stunt with her ofuda to turn him human _permanently,_ as they'd used what would have been a fatal amount of purification for even the very strongest full-blooded youkai.

Unfortunately, depending on your perspective, hanyou were actually super youkai when it came to dealing with reiki. It was ironic, really, considering most youkai looked down on hanyou for being half human, as if it made them weak. And it _was_ true that their human time of the month was a definite weakness, but putting that aside for a moment, hanyou could survive nearly all of the same types of physical injuries youkai could survive, and at least for daibanyou like Inuyasha, they could heal almost as quickly. Then on top of that, their human blood acted as a fail-safe to protect them from purification.

Thinking about it a moment, Kagome had to suppress a shudder, grateful beyond words the world governments had all agreed to make it illegal to utilize youkai in human warfare, or she could just imagine the horror that might have been a hanyou soldier breeding program. She supposed in that one way it was actually a good thing the world viewed hanyou as youkai, as well, because acknowledging the fact that they were human hybrids could have theoretically created a loophole when it came to hanyou and the military. Fortunately _that_ was a reality they didn't have to face.

What they hadn't known until actually trying their purification experiment, though, was just how quickly his youki would regenerate itself.

A purifying ofuda used up its magic upon performing its purification. Or at least the ones used to fight youkai did. If placed on a building to keep youkai _out_ that was different, but even then they didn't last forever and needed to be recharged on occasion. When placed directly on the youkai itself, though, it would burn through all the energy that'd been put into it to release that reiki into the youkai on contact, and such was the case with Inuyasha. The only problem was that his youki had started to come back again after only a few short minutes of being purified human, Kagome's spent ofuda still on his bare chest.

Perhaps, she had hypothesized, if he were within a purifying barrier made by one of their strongest priests, then the effects might last until the barrier was removed, but that was irrelevant. Either way, turning him human at will so he could go about his business and live a normal life wasn't an option.

"Figures it was too good to be true," Inuyasha said around the current bite in his mouth, waving it off with his chopsticks. Swallowing, he added, "I am what I am, and I'm used to being alone because of it. At least, thanks to you, I don't have to be alone again for a _long_ time."

"You'll _never_ be alone again if I can help it," she replied right away, and the intense look in her eyes locked them both in a stare again until they both looked away, faint blushes rising up on their cheeks that they both diligently ignored as they each resumed eating.

Clearing his throat after a moment, Inuyasha spoke back up with, "By the way, I got you something as a sort of thank you for everything so far."

Kagome put her chopsticks down, blinking at him in surprise.

"You...you got me something? _Besides_ making dinner?"

He shrugged, and valiantly ignored the darkening blush on his cheeks.

"Okay, so technically you paid for it, since the only money I have to my name is the allowance you give me...which I _also_ told you I didn't need, by the way, along with the computer," he added with a laugh, smiling broadly when she giggled as well.

"I know, I know," she said, still laughing, "but I wanted you to be able to buy whatever you wanted... _for yourself_ ," she stressed, still smiling, "and hooking you up with your own account so you could buy things online seemed like a better idea than dragging you to the mall every new moon night."

"Yeah...once was enough," he agreed with a playful shudder.

That first new moon after Kagome had invited him to live with her she'd brought him home to the Higurashi shrine for dinner, to meet her family, but the next month she'd convinced him to go out shopping with her to the big mall in the city.

She'd bought him a lot of necessities within the first week of meeting him. He didn't wear deodorant – it was an inu thing, not wanting to mask his scent – and he didn't need a toothbrush because his demonic teeth were impervious to tartar buildup and he hated the taste of toothpaste, but he'd needed other things like changes of clothing, or at the very least underwear. Plus she'd gotten him a few things to just wear around the house, like t-shirts and shorts, since with the new boiler the radiators were making the place toasty warm and she'd figured he was roasting in those bulky red robes. She'd also gotten him a modern gray yukata and black hakama for that first dinner at the shrine since neither of them had known if wearing demonic robes would have complicated things.

He'd had a whole wardrobe of normal modern clothes growing up, of course. His mother had bought him kid's clothes in the city, not daring to risk shopping for her little boy in her home town where people might recognize her. When he outgrew his things she'd donated them anonymously to thrift stores in the city as well. But he'd still had all his adult clothes and other possessions when she'd died, and keeping his promise to his mother, not wanting to risk leaving _any_ evidence of his existence in the house for other humans to discover, he'd taken everything with him deep into the forest to the place he'd tried to make his new home until reverting back to coming home to this house at night for safety – and on rainy days to stay dry – only hunting and bathing in the forest during the day.

After four decades in the woods there was nothing left of his old possessions, of course. Other youkai had found them at various times he hadn't been there, lured by his scent. Not that he'd been wearing his human clothes since his mother's death, anyway, not daring to wear anything other than the protective fire-rat robes left to him by his father. His other stuff had been more sentimental than anything else, but at least he still had the house itself and most of the original furniture, and now, thanks to Kagome forcing him to go shopping with her that next new moon after dinner with her family, he had other outfits he could wear when his archaic and _demonic_ robes weren't really appropriate, like when the two of them went out to dinner on his human nights.

Like he'd said, one trip to the mall had been enough. Now they just spent his human nights going out to eat dinner at one of the restaurants in town, not bothering to travel into the nearby city. So far they'd always gone someplace different, not for fear of Kagome being recognized and people starting to wonder who her mysterious friend was, but just because she wanted him to have a wide range of experiences, trying all the various local cuisines.

It was just one of the many things he loved about her.

After everything she'd done for him, after everything she'd _given_ him, it had seemed only fair, only right, that he give her something in return, and even though he'd technically had to pay for her gift using her own money, it was money she'd already given to him that he was allowed to spend on himself. Unless he could think of a way to actually earn his own money that was going to be the best he could do, but he hoped the gesture was still appreciated nonetheless.

"So anyway," he spoke back up then, clearing his throat nervously, and Kagome's wandering mind immediately snapped back into focus. "I bought it a few days ago and timed it so that delivery was schedule for today, no signature required, so that after nobody answered the door the dude just left the package," he explained as he scooted his chair back a bit and stood up to head into the living room. "It would have spoiled the surprise otherwise, if it'd arrived while you were home. I'm glad they didn't screw that up."

"You're getting a little too clever for your own good," Kagome replied with a fond smile as Inuyasha retrieved a box from the drawer on the curio cabinet.

It wasn't a large box. In fact, the box was actually so small it'd been placed inside a larger padded envelope for shipping, but Inuyasha had removed that part earlier, presenting Kagome with a box that fit in one hand as he returned to the table, setting the box down in front of her.

"You've been...you've just been so nice to me, so I wanted something to say thanks," he said with another faint blush on his cheeks, as a totally stunned Kagome opened the box to reveal the necklace held within.

"My mom used to have one that was really similar, but her jewelry was all taken by someone long ago," he added. "I wish now that I would've tucked something away, but well, you got the whole house, so I guess that's pretty special..." he said before shutting up, realizing he was rambling.

The necklace was actually a locket, and just costume jewelry. A reproduction of a 1920s art deco style, pink rose quartz stones set in silver plated copper. Inuyasha's 'allowance' wasn't enough to buy anything too expensive, but besides it being the thought that counted, as the saying went, his mother's original jewelry had all been costume, too, and plus he already knew Kagome wasn't into spending top dollar on frivolous things. Growing up at a shrine she was used to modest living.

"This is beautiful! Thank you..." Kagome said, instantly recognizing the piece as costume and actually mentally sighing in relief that he hadn't been saving up only to blow all of his money on something like this.

Sure, it was his money and he could do whatever he wanted with it, but she would've felt awkward, not to mention guilty that he'd felt obligated to do so. This, on the other hand, was a charming little gift, and she didn't hesitate to put it on right in that moment, the chain long enough to just slip it down over her head without unlatching it.

Popping it open afterwards to look into the pendant upside down, she spied the empty oval and already started getting ideas.

"I'm going to need a picture of you for in here, you know," she said with a smirk. At his slightly panicked expression she conceded, "During your human night."

 _Although I think you're much cuter as a hanyou,_ she added in her mind, before scolding herself to stop thinking such things as she got back to eating the last of her oden.

After dinner, she put her bow and arrows away and finally changed out of her miko garb, grabbing a quick shower before putting on some flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. Ordinarily she'd hang out with Inuyasha watching TV for a while before bed, but on training days she was too sore to be good company, her instructor always putting her through all sorts of moves she'd never done at the shrine when honing her reiki skills growing up, and so bidding her hanyou roommate goodnight after thanking him once again for both dinner and the necklace, she retired to her bedroom.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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Sleep was illusive for the miko at first, her muscles throbbing even after taking some OTC pain pills. Lying there awake for a while, Kagome couldn't help it when her thoughts began to wander, as she glanced at the locket she'd placed on the nightstand beside her, the silver plated metal illuminated slightly by the light of her digital alarm clock. She was still wrapping her head around the fact that Inuyasha had bought her a necklace, and she knew it wasn't intended as a romantic gesture, but even so, it made it obvious to her that he cared for her deeply in some capacity or another. She believed him that he'd wanted to thank her for her own kindness towards him over the last could also function as an anniversary present of sorts.

 _Man, has it really been a year already?_

Yes it had. They were in the beginning of October now, and it'd been around the beginning of October last year when she'd bought the house. She remembered now; Halloween had been only a little over a week after she'd discovered Inuyasha in the attic, and the holiday had gone by mostly unacknowledged because after all the hustle and bustle of trying to get the place restored, while also trying to get to the bottom of the 'haunting' she'd known hadn't been a ghost but had _not_ expected to be a near century old hanyou protecting his childhood home – boy had that been a surprise! – she had been quite thoroughly done with spooky and had opted to just pass out candy to the neighborhood kids while Inuyasha hid upstairs. She'd told him he could join in with the candy giving if he wanted, to because nobody else was a reiki user and therefore wouldn't know he was a real hanyou, but looking back on it, she couldn't blame him for having been so skittish. They'd barely begun getting to know each other at the time. Trust had to be earned.

Telling him he was welcome to remain in the house with her had been a no-brainer, though, and she'd never once regretted the decision. It was _his_ house. How could she rightfully kick him out? And she'd realized pretty quickly that he could have actually done her serious harm, could have _killed_ her, if he'd wanted to, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd merely tried to frighten her away by making her think the house was haunted, something he'd done several times in the past quite successfully. She couldn't even begin to imagine what life must have been like for him all these years alone, after his mother's death. There was just no way she could have banished him to life in the forest.

Though of course, that said, it wasn't as if living with him had been a totally smooth transition.

It had actually been awkward as hell at first, especially sharing the one bathroom, but remembering her high school friends' stories about their college dorm roommates had had Kagome at least feeling grateful that she and Inuyasha had their own separate bedrooms. She'd also realized that she'd better do the best she could to help him get to know her instead of them trying to avoid one another day in and day out.

Of course, that he'd known practically nothing about her aside from the fact that she was a powerful miko who loved his mother's house and planned on living in it rather than flipping it, but yet he'd instantly accepted her invitation to remain living in the house as well, with her, had in and of itself told Kagome a lot about him. It'd told her how much _he_ loved the house, for one thing. Or perhaps how frightened he was at the prospect of living in the wild.

Perhaps both. And that he'd feared the other youkai of the world more than her had told Kagome that he'd trusted her at least enough to believe she'd keep her promise of letting him remain living there.

Of course, he was inu and could undoubtedly smell hostile intentions, and had therefore detected none in her. So perhaps it hadn't so much been her he'd trusted, then, but his own instincts, which had told him she wasn't a threat. That might've made it less of a leap of faith on his part, if that were the case, but it'd still told her a lot about his character either way.

So she'd made a point of getting to know him, and letting him get to know her. That very first morning after discovering him in the attic she had surprised the hell out of him by making him breakfast, and to his credit he'd only shown slight hesitation before agreeing to sit down to eat with her. Aside from the times either of them just grabbed the odd snack throughout the day they'd been having their meals together ever since, too, with Inuyasha sitting at the head of the table, per Kagome's insistence.

That first morning Inuyasha hadn't been very talkative, at first, but Kagome hadn't let that dissuade her. She'd just started yammering on about herself to fill the silence. She'd told him about her life growing up at the shrine, being raised by her parents to know that not all youkai were bad and how to tell the difference between peaceful demonic auras and tainted ones, about her little brother, the death of her father, and honing her reiki and ofuda skills under her grandfather's tutelage while an older miko named Kaede had taught her the bow.

Eventually opening up a little bit, himself, Inuyasha had in turn told her more about his mother. About her home schooling him as a kid, as unofficial as it was seeing as nobody knew he existed. But she'd made sure he knew how to read and write, and while her own math skills hadn't been advanced she'd at least taught him the basics. She'd also bought him history books so he could learn about the world around him, as well as human _and_ youkai biology books. Inuyasha had then hesitantly explained that, when he'd gotten a little older, his mother had also encouraged him to experiment with conjuring up any possible natural youki abilities he might possess, from within the safety of the forest of course, so as not to accidentally destroy the house. During that first breakfast he'd told Kagome how it'd been thanks to his mother insisting he embrace his youkai half and learn how to use his powers that he'd been ready and able to defend himself when he'd tried to go live with the youkai upon his mother's death and had quickly learned in no uncertain terms that he was _not_ welcome among them.

To learn that he had two different youki based 'attacks' for lack of a better term, and that he knew how to use them, had not made Kagome fearful of him. There was no need when she had complete confidence in her own abilities and knew she'd be able to defend herself with a barrier if he ever got it into his head to attack her, not that she'd honestly thought for even one moment that he'd ever actually do such a thing, and he'd been able to tell she didn't fear him, too. It meant so much to him, he'd told her back then, that she hadn't feared him.

Especially since he'd all too recently been _trying_ to frighten her.

But even when she hadn't known who or what he was, she hadn't been afraid of him. She'd thought he was a prankster kitsune, and then instead of trying to purify him she'd merely tried to lock him out of the house. Then after he'd snuck back in on his human night and the 'hauntings' had started up again she still hadn't tried to harm him, only using her ofuda to isolate him and catch him once and for all. That alone had told him so much about her, he'd explained. It was why he'd been able to take her up on her offer of staying in the house. Just like she'd never believed for even a moment that he would hurt her, so too had he known she wouldn't harm him, and for the same reason. If she'd wanted to she would have done so already.

Finally nodding off to sleep, Kagome's last thoughts were about how glad she was that he'd trusted her and hadn't just decided for himself that he'd better leave, despite her invitation to remain. It'd been weird at first, but now, she couldn't imagine her life without him in it.

Back downstairs, absentmindedly flipping channels, Inuyasha's thoughts were wandering in similar directions, thinking back on his and Kagome's time together over the last year, and what it'd been like getting to know her and her family. As Shiro wandered over to him and woofed softly, he nodded, woofed back, turned the TV off, and headed upstairs to go to bed, the akita mix following him up.

It wasn't really as if he could carry on a conversation with Shiro, or at least not one a human would comprehend. Dogs didn't really speak to each other the same way humans did, like they sometimes portrayed in silly movies where actors provided the voices for the dogs. There were no words per se, but moods. The woof Shiro had given him was not the 'word' for bed, but merely articulated the desire to go to bed, and his own woof had been conceding to the other dog's wish.

Yes, the _other_ dog, because his mother had told him to accept his inu-youkai half and it would honestly be downright foolish not to. He was what he was, and denying it wouldn't change anything. Understanding dogs just came naturally, and in fact, his mother had told him that as an infant he'd whimpered like a dog just as often as he'd cried as a baby, usually doing a combination of both types of sounds during the same moment of upset.

That was something he'd unwittingly revealed to Kagome the day she'd unexpectedly come home with young Shiro as a pup, sheepishly apologizing when she'd seen his face, which had looked incredulous, she'd thought as if he couldn't believe she'd had the audacity to bring a lower canine into the home, as if she were rubbing the fact that he himself was half canine in his face. That hadn't been what he'd been thinking at all, of course, his expression instead being a result of what the pup himself had been 'saying'for lack of a better term, recognizing Inuyasha as a higher dog in the pack and submitting to him accordingly. He'd just been surprised because no other dogs had ever reacted that way to him before, but he'd figured it was because the pup was just that, a pup, and his only other experiences with mortal dogs had been adult dogs in people's backyards barking at him as an invader when he'd gotten too close during his occasional observations of humans throughout the years.

Of course, to Kagome Shiro's submission noises had just been a bunch of random yips and whimpers, and she'd then started to apologize to Inuyasha that bringing home a puppy had clearly been a bad idea, because she'd thought the puppy was scared of Inuyasha, until the hanyou had told her that it was fine and that the pup wasn't afraid of him but rather just submitting and waiting for his acceptance, which he'd then proceeded to woof at the pup.

 _That_ had led to a rather awkward conversation with the miko about just how dog-like he really was at times, but much to Inuyasha's surprise and relief Kagome had not only _not_ been disturbed by this new revelation, but grinning broadly, she'd stated with relief and a bit of a chuckle that good, then, that meant he could help her potty train the young akita mix because he should just be able to explain it to him. Even though the new floors were water proof, and should then in theory also be potty proof, she'd still been a little worried about the pup making messes in the house. He'd just been _soooooo cute_ and she hadn't been able to say no when the lady giving him away had given Kagome a _'the look'_ that had rivaled the _'the look'_ by the puppy himself.

Reaching over with his hand to ruffle the fur on the top of Shiro's head as the adult dog lied beside him on his bed in that moment, Inuyasha smiled at the overgrown pup and then gave a soft woof for him to go to Kagome now, which Shiro did after delivering a quick lick across the hanyou's cheek that had Inuyasha playfully grimacing before wiping his face with the back of his hand.

Thinking about the dog, and about his own dog-like qualities, Inuyasha sighed as he once again found himself questioning...more like analyzing, really...his feelings for Kagome. He knew he loved her, but...was it his human half, wanting to be in a relationship with her? Was it his dog half, just loving her the same way Shiro did, because he was her dog and she was his human? Honestly, he felt like it was actually _both,_ but what he didn't know was what Kagome would think about that. Then there was the minor detail that he knew his human emotions might be skewed by the fact that Kagome was the first person he'd gotten to know since his mother's death. It was just the two of them, after all, and he lived with her, alone, spending every day with her, and she was kind to him. Of _course_ he'd fall in love with her, right? But not necessarily, he always tried to argue with himself.

Not that it really mattered either way, he supposed, unless he ever got brave enough to tell Kagome how he felt. But therein lied a whole _slew_ of dilemmas. What if _she_ thought the only reason he had feelings for her was because of his previous isolation and so he'd latched on to her emotionally? What if it just made things awkward between them if it made her realize she shouldn't be so friendly with him? The last thing he wanted to do was risk losing her friendship. What if he pushed her to the point of only continuing to allow him to live there because she wouldn't go back on her promise, but it became clear she didn't really want him there anymore?

Well, he knew the answer to that. He'd leave, as painful as it would be. But would it be leaving the house that he'd hate, or leaving her? At first, all he'd cared about was his home, but now, he knew his loyalty had definitely shifted. He _was_ her dog, she _was_ his human, his inu-youkai side was loyal to her and all that mattered to him was her happiness. If he accidentally ruined their friendship and she wanted him gone he would leave, for her sake, but he would miss her something fierce. No longer was she simply a person, a companion so he was no longer lonely. She was _Kagome_ , and he could be welcomed with open arms into a new home with several people who all accepted him for what he was and he'd still feel all alone in the world if she wasn't with him. If that wasn't love, he didn't know what was. And he knew it wasn't _just_ his dog half that'd imprinted itself on her because he still felt the same way on his human nights.

In fact, in a way, he loved her even more strongly as a human.

As a hanyou he was content to just be in her presence. Sure, he _wanted_ more, he wouldn't lie about that, but he knew it was never going to happen and he could accept that, finding solace in her companionship. As a hanyou he told himself that he would be happy for her if she ever met a human man and fell in love, if she married and her husband moved into the house with them.

He snorted at the thought, not of letting her go, but just of her finding another man. How was she even supposed to go about something like that with him around?

 _Welcome! This is my house, oh, and this is my hanyou roommate…_ he mocked in his head.

Well, he supposed such a thing would make a good test to see if the man was truly worthy of Kagome, and he would stay her loyal hanyou companion and protector, her guard dog. He would watch over her family, and gladly babysit their children so she and her husband could go out on dates. A part of him would be sad, forever longing for what could never be, but such was the plight of a dog who wished he were human.

When he _was_ human, however, as fleeting as those moments were, all his willingness to just be her loyal lapdog went out the proverbial window, and it was a downright miracle he hadn't spilled his guts to her yet during one of their 'dates' on his human nights.

Oh, Kagome didn't call them dates. She just took him out so that he could see more of the world. The first new moon night after she'd discovered him in the attic had been dinner at the shrine, and then the month after that, shopping at the mall, where, as stressful as that had been, he'd managed to select for himself a fabulous replacement wardrobe and several other personal items Kagome had insisted on buying for him. Because his experience at the mall had been overwhelming, the following month Kagome had offered to just take him out to dinner at one of the local restaurants in town, and he'd agreed simply because he'd wanted to make her happy, even though he'd initially been dreading the experience. But dinner had gone well, and so he'd happily agreed to dinner at a different restaurant every new moon since. Kagome wasn't really close with any of her neighbors so if anybody saw them coming or going on those nights they probably just assumed he was her boyfriend, which was the assumption most people would have in the restaurants, too, he knew, which had a faint blush staining his cheeks in that moment as he thought about it.

Kagome had to realize that the whole thing had seemingly romantic undertones, didn't she?

It was things like that that had the hanyou hoping that maybe it _wouldn't_ ruin anything if he ever dared tell her how he felt. Maybe...maybe she actually felt something for him in return? He certainly liked to hope she did, at least. She'd probably never say anything, either, if she did, because surely she knew nothing could ever come of it. A hanyou and a human would be bad enough, but a hanyou and a _miko?_ And what would her _family_ think?! No...no there was no way Kagome could allow anything to actually develop between them, and he understood that, but if she did at least have _feelings_ for him, then that had to prove that she really did see him as a person, just like she always claimed. That was enough for him. Or at least, it was when he was hanyou.

 _Crap, and the new moon's in two days…_ he realized then.

Well, there was no point in dwelling on it. As difficult as it was, as much as his heart ached for her on his human nights, he would never in a million years want to give up his 'date nights' with Kagome.

Grinning despite himself, Inuyasha was both dreading and looking forward to the rapidly approaching new moon. It was a bit masochistic, perhaps, but it was what it was. In that moment, though, he decided to just stop thinking about it, so that hopefully sleep could claim him. He was successful in that endeavor a few minutes later when he finally nodded off after quieting his own thoughts enough so that his enhanced hearing could lull him to sleep with the sound of Kagome's even breathing coming from the room across the hall.

oooooooooooooooooooo

The next morning, neither Kagome nor Inuyasha gave any indication to the other of the direction their thoughts had traveled in the night before. The miko woke up around dawn to Shiro squirming around and rolling on the bed, and after laughing when he attacked her with kisses, before slamming her mouth shut, because he was attacking her with kisses, she then fought her way out of the bed when the overgrown puppy kept climbing all over her and then finally made her way into the bathroom.

If Inuyasha hadn't already been awake the ruckus would have roused him in an instant, but as it was he just laid there grinning to himself, his arms automatically wrapping around Shiro when the akita mix suddenly jumped up onto his bed and then crawled on top of _him_.

Twenty minutes later saw both hanyou and miko downstairs, the latter fixing them both breakfast per their usual routine, although Inuyasha offered to help. Kagome insisted she had everything under control, but at his slightly rejected expression she reminded him he was more than welcome to fix dinner again that evening if he wanted to, which had him adopting an overly dramatic 'evil' grin as he rubbed his hands together, which had the miko snorting a laugh as she finished cooking their eggs.

After breakfast, she changed back into her miko garb, and with her bow and arrows in her possession, as well as plenty of ofuda, she was out the door and headed back into the city for the second half of her monthly training.

Inuyasha made himself busy in her absence by spending most of his time on the Internet, which he did half the time when she was home, too. As much as a part of him would love to, he didn't want to hover around her 24/7 like a little following puppy dog. That was Shiro's job.

Besides staying updated on the current affairs of the world and human/youkai relations, he also used the Internet to educate himself on all the new products that had been invented over the last forty years, learning about the various updates in cars, and filling in the gaps to explain how landline telephones had morphed into portable mini computers that just happened to also be able to make phone calls, not to mention the history of computers and the Internet itself. He also spent a lot of time listening to the various music he'd missed over the last four decades, and watching videos people had posted of themselves online, simply for the entertainment factor. He saved watching movies for Kagome, as she found a great deal of entertainment, herself, watching his face as he watched her favorites for the first time. He had to admit, the special effects used in modern day sci-fi and horror films was a hell of a lot better than it had been back in his day.

Getting lost down a proverbial rabbit hole in YouTube, it wasn't long before Inuyasha had to peal himself away from his computer to get dinner ready. He prepared meatloaf this time. His mother's old recipe.

When Kagome got home, exhausted from two days straight of strenuous physical activity as her battle skills were put to the test, she had to stop herself from tearing up at the mention that this was one of the first things his mother had ever taught him how to cook.

"What's wrong?" he asked her with a worried edge to his voice as they sat together at the dining table, once he noticed the sting of encroaching tears in the air.

"Nothing, nothing…" she assured him, waving it off with the fork she was still holding in her hand, before then biting off the bit of meatloaf that'd been stuck to the end of it. "I'm just tired, and it's easier for us humans to get overly emotional when we're physically exhausted." Laughing, she took another bite, took a swig from her water glass, and then added, "Thank you so much for fixing dinner. I really appreciate it because I'm dead on my feet."

"Now I feel bad that I waited this long to fix dinner on the weekends you train," he said, a light blush staining his cheeks.

"Well don't," she insisted.

She always kept a supply of instant meal options on hand and they'd always just eaten something like cup noodle or a TV dinner on those nights. Not that those were the _only_ nights they'd resorted to something quick and easy.

"Heck, half the time we just eat something microwaveable for lunch _and_ dinner even when I'm home all day. It's not like I've always been cooking every night and suddenly just don't one weekend a month. Home cooked meals from scratch are a rarity in this house and what you're doing right now is spoiling me rotten, if you must know. I may start wanting you to cook all the time if you're not careful, so you better knock it off while you can."

She ended her little speech with a laugh that had him chuckling as well.

"You've done so much for me, given me so much. Cooking for you every night would really be the least I could do in return, to show my gratitude."

Damn, there was that sting of tears again. Inuyasha pretended not to notice as Kagome blinked rapidly a few times. Taking another bite of his meatloaf, he hid a smile as he chewed. His mother had taught him long ago about the existence of _happy_ tears and he realized now that that's what it was.

"At least neither of us have to cook _tomorrow_ night," he said to change the subject.

Of course, thinking about his new moon outings with Kagome had the hanyou wanting to cry a different sort of tears than happy ones, but he wouldn't lose control over his emotions like that...at least until tomorrow night. At that time, he would do everything within his power to act as normally as possible, but he just knew that one of these days he was going to blow it.

"I'm looking forward to it," Kagome said, completely unaware of where her companion's thoughts had gone.

The idea that she could possibly be looking forward to him losing his control over his emotions had another blush creeping up the hanyou's cheeks. The _one_ thing emotion-wise he couldn't prevent from happening while being his hanyou self. Mentally cursing his face's tendency to broadcast his embarrassment, he tried his best to ignore it as he took a sip of water before getting back to eating, and thankfully Kagome seemed to have missed it as she appeared lost in her own thoughts for the moment.

She had special plans for tomorrow night, and she was _definitely_ looking forward to it.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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The next morning, Kagome didn't feel like doing her usual morning chores around the house because she was worn out from her two days of training. They really put her to the test, having her run and jump and dodge all while firing arrows at moving targets. It was definitely more complicated than shooting a stationary target while standing still! But thankfully since she _had_ already had standard archery practice growing up she'd been able to skip beginner's archery training and jump right into the battle training. Next month she'd start training in the field with some of her town's local taijiya, so that she could get to know, and learn how to work with, the people she would be fighting alongside in the event of a youkai attack. For right now, though, she didn't want to think about that. All she wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch TV for the next few hours. After getting some food in her stomach.

Sympathizing, Inuyasha didn't hesitate to fix Kagome breakfast when he saw the way she was walking as she headed downstairs. At first she was going to pour herself a bowl of cereal before sitting down in the living room, but shooing her out of the kitchen he got to work cooking her up some French toast, instead. Kagome knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just murmured a tired "Thank you," before heading into the living room and having a seat on the couch. Inuyasha came in a few minutes later with two plates of French toast, and they ate their breakfast together while watching the morning game shows.

After breakfast Inuyasha also offered to do her usual chores for her, in addition to his own, but waving off his offer that time, Kagome pointed out that the house wasn't going to fall to pieces from one day of neglect and instead invited him to skip his own housework and continue watching TV with her instead. He readily agreed, and together they both enjoyed the next few hours of simply being in each other's company, neither of them needing to think about what to say as the TV did the talking for them.

They let the entire first half of the day breeze by, and then after a light lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches Kagome decided to soak her aching muscles for a while in the bath, so that she'd be nice and refreshed for dinner that night, Inuyasha spending the time on the computer. Even after hearing Kagome get out of the bathroom he stayed online, just browsing around like he liked to do, but he kept an eye on the time. He knew they'd be going out to dinner at sundown, so he'd make sure to start getting ready on time. Right now he was just wearing his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, what he'd had on all day. Not usually ever leaving the house meant that he didn't usually ever need to get dressed, although he showered regularly because unlike Shiro, he didn't hate baths.

The rest of the afternoon went by fairly quickly, the hanyou getting lost in YouTube again. Kagome heard his occasional laugh from across the hall but didn't want to intrude, so she left him be until it was time to start getting ready for dinner. Letting Shiro out, first, so that the dog could do his business and be all set to stay in the house by himself for a couple of hours, she then went back up to her room and played the usual game of figuring out what to wear. This time, because she wanted tonight to be special, she decided to ask Inuyasha what _he_ was planning on wearing.

"I dunno," he answered with a shrug, glancing up at her as he put the video on pause. "Did you want me to wear something specific?" he asked her then. "That's fine by me. Just tell me what."

"How about a black shirt and jeans?" she stated since he'd given her the option. She had a nice black blouse that the locket he'd given her would look good against, and she really wanted to match him if at all possible.

"Sounds good," he answered.

"Okay cool. I'm going to start getting ready," Kagome said then before disappearing into her bedroom and closing the door.

Inuyasha finished watching the last video in the series he'd been watching, first, and then getting off the computer, he too started getting dressed for dinner. Putting on a nice pair of bleached jeans with a nice solid black t-shirt, his still-canine ears swiveled on the top of his head a few minutes later as he heard Kagome approach his bedroom doorway.

"Knock knock," she said, in her usual cheery tone. She was dressed in darker blue jeans and a black blouse, the locket he'd given her two nights ago hanging around her neck, the silver and pink a nice contrast against the black fabric of her shirt.

"Hey," he replied in greeting, before turning his attention to the mirror on the wall, above his dresser.

He watched his own reflection as the change consumed him, then, his silvery white hair bleeding to black at the same time that his ears morphed and moved, simultaneously changing shape and relocating until they became human ears on the sides of his head. The sensation was weird, and unpleasant, but it wasn't actually painful. At least not when it wasn't brought on by a bolt of reiki. What bothered him the most was the changes he could feel happening deep inside his head, as his very skull changed shape, his inner ear canals and ear drums relocating themselves, and then after that there was the precise moment his sense of hearing, and smell, switched from demonic in nature to completely, fully, utterly human.

It was a surprisingly abrupt change for a process that took several seconds to complete. Despite his outward appearance during the change, his heightened demonic senses were a result of his youki, and that part of him more or less flipped off like a light switch at the very end of his transformation. His hearing didn't just gradually get less and less sensitive, like listening to a steady sound getting farther and farther away. Perhaps it did to a point, as his canine ears became elfin before rounding at the tips, but then at the very end the biggest drop in hearing, and smell, was always abrupt, and he was always unprepared for it, no matter how many times he watched himself change in the mirror.

He'd explained it to Kagome when she'd asked. He couldn't blame her for being curious, and he'd done his best to come up with an appropriate analogy.

Like an open window letting in a cold winter's breeze, he'd explained, as the window was closed it would allow a little bit less of the cold to come through, but leave it open even a crack and you'd still be able to feel the chill of the outside air getting in. Close the window that last tiny bit of the way and there would be a resounding _click_ as suddenly, the cold was completely shut out, and you would immediately feel the significant difference.

Of course, that analogy hadn't been perfect as it'd compared his youki to something unpleasant and the losing of it as a relief, but she'd still understood what he'd been getting at. That last sudden 'click' as his ears lost so much sensitivity, so quickly, was the auditory equivalent of suddenly being plunged into darkness, without his demonic night vision of course. Trying to listen to the world around him as a human was as disconcerting as trying to see in the dark as one, without even the moon to light his way.

But he was used to it, and even with as unpleasant as his human nights were, for the past year he'd actually found himself looking forward to the experience. Sure, it was harder to keep his emotions in check, and after realizing he was in love with Kagome a part of him was terrified he'd one day accidentally do something to let her know how he felt while they were out on their little excursions, but be that as it may he wouldn't give up his monthly nights out with Kagome for anything.

While in a way, yes, it was torture to be with her on his human night, it was also actually better, because of his feelings for her, that they were always out in public. Being around other people helped keep him on his best behavior. He didn't even want to _think_ about what he might unintentionally say or do if they spent a new moon night alone together at the house. Besides all that, the new moon was also more simply his only time of the month when he could, in fact, leave the house, and the fact that Kagome took him out, that he _got to go do things_ on his human nights now – his mother had been too afraid to risk it before, and alone, after her death, he'd been too frightened, too, and had spent his human nights awake and afraid up in the attic – he wasn't about to walk away from this opportunity to go experience things in the human world, burdensome human emotions be damned.

Their monthly 'date night' had evolved naturally from Kagome originally thinking of other stuff they could do together on his human nights after their trip to the mall. She'd suggested they just go out to eat at a nearby restaurant on their third ever new moon together because she'd wanted to do something with him that wouldn't be so overwhelming. Dinner had then turned out to be such a good idea that the next new moon she'd picked a different restaurant, and then again the new moon after that, and then the new moon after that. Now it was a given, their monthly tradition, and Inuyasha was looking forward to seeing where she took him this month.

Sure, she could always order food to go from these various restaurants so he could try the dishes as his hanyou self, and in fact she _had_ brought home various meals when he'd been torn regarding what to order so he'd picked one thing with her promise that she'd bring him the other meal the next night, but trying the cuisine was really only part of it. She also wanted to show him the world, let him interact with other people when he was human and as far as they were concerned he was _always_ human. With nobody aware he was actually a hanyou he got treated with respect by everyone, including the wait staff. He'd never been called _sir_ before, and it was a rare and special treat. Kagome was glad she could give it to him.

Not that there was really anything wrong with being hanyou in Kagome's book, but considering society's view, she really did wish, for Inuyasha's sake, that purification had turned out to be an option for turning him human at will. Sure, he still couldn't have truly existed as a functioning member of society, considering he had no paperwork and therefore no identity, but being able to go out and about more often than one night a month would have been worth it in and of itself, even without having an ID or birth certificate.

Still, both of them would take what they could get. Inuyasha got to experience what being 'normal' was like one night a month, and Kagome got to pretend she and Inuyasha were more than just friends and roommates, because yes, she _was_ well aware of what their little monthly 'outings' looked like to random outside observers not in the know, and just like Inuyasha enjoyed letting everyone assume he was human, she enjoyed letting everyone assume they were together. She even suspected the hanyou-turned-human shared a similar fantasy, but she hadn't braved broaching the subject yet.

At any rate, with Inuyasha's transformation complete, it was time to hit the road. With each of them unaware of what the other was thinking, they each told themselves that now wasn't the time for such thoughts as it was time to simply focus on living in the now and enjoying their new moon night out together.

"Be a good boy while we're gone Shiro," Kagome said to the dog that'd been resting on Inuyasha's bed the whole time.

Shiro, used to the occasional change in Inuyasha's scent and no longer freaked out by his transformations, merely cracked an eye open to look at them both before getting up and readjusting himself before plopping back down, his back turned to the humans.

" _So_ sorry to have disturbed you," Inuyasha drawled sarcastically, and then smiling as Kagome giggled, they headed out.

The drive to the restaurant was peaceful, Inuyasha doing an expert job of keeping his heightened human emotions under wraps. He grinned at Kagome whenever she smiled his way, but made sure not to stare at her for too long at any point. She'd told him she was taking him someplace special this time, which was a funny thing to say when, as a hanyou, going to _any_ restaurant was special, but he realized what she meant when they pulled up at a cute little ramen shop.

"Ramen!" he blurted before he could contain himself, earning a snorted laugh from the miko.

"Happy anniversary," she joked, earning surprised eyes of chocolate brown from her temporarily human companion as a faint blush rose up on his cheeks.

Of course, he understood what she meant, that it'd been a year since they'd met, but his traitorous human emotions wanted it to mean so much more. Especially since she was wearing the necklace he'd given her, as if she understood that it had been an anniversary gift in addition to merely a thank you.

Mentally kicking herself for the comment upon seeing his reaction, Kagome abruptly decided she was not yet ready to brave having any kind of a discussion along those lines, and so to hopefully seem oblivious she immediately started rambling.

"I just realized the other day, like, I know how much you like ramen, so how the hell have I never taken you to a ramen shop before now, right? On the other hand, be prepared for this experience to ruin instant ramen for you forever because nothing compares to the real thing."

Recovering quickly when Kagome kept talking, taking advantage of those precious few extra seconds to get his heart rate back under control, Inuyasha offered her one of his perfected 'normal' smiles, then, and replied that it was better late than never, in regard to her taking him to a ramen shop.

"I promise it won't turn me off to the instant stuff," he added with a genuine chuckle because there was no way he'd ever stop liking instant ramen. That freshly made ramen was even _better_ , though, was undoubtedly the case, and so he was definitely looking forward to this experience.

Getting out of her car, then, awkward moment successfully behind them, they went together into the cute little noodle shop. It was nowhere near as fancy an establishment as a lot of the other places she'd taken him to, and she'd never taken him to a _really_ fancy restaurant because even she felt out of place in _those_ places, but the smile on Inuyasha's face as his human nose worked overtime trying to take in what he could of all the various smells told Kagome she'd made the right decision. She might just bring him back to this place from now on if he loved it as much as she thought he was going to. She'd also make sure to bring home the occasional dinner from there for him to enjoy when he was his hanyou self.

It took the hanyou-turned-human a few minutes to decide what to order, because he couldn't put food away as a human the same way he could as a hanyou, otherwise he would have wanted to order one of every flavor, but finally deciding on beef ramen because come on, it was beef, his eyes nearly crossed when he took his first bite from how absolutely unbelievably _good_ it was.

Kagome smirked. She would definitely be bringing him here from now on.

Dinner was a quiet, peaceful affair, Inuyasha even letting Kagome take a picture of him with her phone for her locket because she wanted to capture that beautiful smile of his while he was so happy. A smile that grew when she whispered to him that she'd bring home dinner from there on occasion so that he could _really_ smell and taste it. With as amazing as the freshly made ramen was even to his human palate he couldn't _wait_ to try the stuff as a hanyou. He would still like the instant stuff, because it had its own certain charm, but he understood, now, when she'd joked that the real stuff would ruin the instant for him. He would just try to think of them as two separate food entities, because while the instant _was_ good, it certainly didn't compare to freshly made.

In fact dinner was _so_ good that Inuyasha asked Kagome if they could order two more meals to go when they were finished eating, and laughing, she agreed. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had ramen for breakfast, but she imagined that even a day old and microwaved the instant stuff would pale in comparison.

Arriving back at home a short while later, Shiro happily greeted the duo, and then slipping off their shoes in the entryway, Inuyasha headed over to the couch and grabbed the TV remote while Kagome put the bag with the to-go containers of ramen in the fridge. She then came back into the living room and joined Inuyasha on the sofa while the hanyou-turned-human flipped through the channels to find something good.

Even though he knew he was safe now, he hadn't slept on his human nights since his mother's death, and when he'd originally told Kagome, after they'd gotten back home after dinner at her family's house that first new moon night eleven months ago, she'd both surprised and truly touched him by insisting she'd stay up _with_ him, to keep him company, and it had become another one of their monthly new moon traditions ever since. She'd take him out of the house for a little while so that he could go _do_ something in the human world, but then when they got back home the two of them plopped down in front of the TV together. Fortunately the new moon had not yet ever coincided with her training with the Spiritual Forces, which was the first weekend of every month. If the new moon ever fell on a night when she had training the next day he wouldn't let her stay up with him, insisting she get some sleep, but so far so good, and with Kagome having no plans the following day they found an entertaining channel to lose themselves in for the rest of the night.

oooooooooooooooooooo

The next couple of weeks went by uneventfully. With Kagome having no job to go to she kept herself busy most days by doing housework, because that place definitely needed it. It was a decent size house, after all, and there were lots of things to dust, the floor needed to be cleaned regularly thanks to Shiro, and even if she took to wearing the same thing most every day like Inuyasha did she still knew she'd wind up with a pile of laundry somehow or another.

Inuyasha helped with the chores, of course. He'd had to let the place go on purpose, before, when it'd needed to appear completely abandoned. In fact a lot of the time that'd meant staying up in the attic so as not to get footprints in the dust, except whenever he'd _deliberately_ left footprints in the dust to freak someone out, but now that the two of them were living together like normal people he definitely wasn't going to make Kagome do all the work when it came to taking care of his mother's home. They had a routine where they did various cleaning chores together in the mornings and then enjoyed TV in the afternoons, usually something simple like the game show network, and then in the evenings they'd do their own thing, which was when Inuyasha spent most of his time online, as did Kagome, although her computer time involved email and Facebook more than anything else. Not that she posted much about her life on social media – and certainly _nothing_ about Inuyasha's existence – but she used the platform to stay in touch with her family and friends more often than talking or texting on the phone.

It might seem like a boring life, and in some ways it was, which was one of the reasons why she'd joined the Spiritual Forces, because that monthly training mixed up her routine and gave her something to do, but boring was also peaceful and hey, the kami had gifted her with lottery winnings, so she was damn well going to enjoy not needing to work for a living. Plus living with Inuyasha made a world of difference, because she wasn't alone, then, just living by herself. Now _that_ would have been boring. But so much of their world was still new to Inuyasha, and one thing she absolutely enjoyed was watching _him_ watch all of her various favorite movies that he'd never seen before.

She also took advantage of having so much free time to read, because she _loved_ reading fiction, although ever since realizing her feelings for Inuyasha she stayed away from romance novels. Her imagination didn't need any help, for one thing, and she certainly didn't need to get any ideas in her head to try something that might turn out to be a horrible idea in her situation. The last thing she needed to do was start 'innocently' acting provocative in an attempt at getting under his skin. She just needed to find her courage and _talk_ to him, tell him how she felt and ask him straight out how he felt for her in return, and she did plan on doing that...eventually. In the meantime, she'd continue to 'release some tension' in the shower whenever the situation called for it – she knew better than to do anything in her bedroom, hanyou noses! – and maybe one day he'd end up being the brave one, telling her how _he_ felt. If he ever did, she would definitely immediately tell him how she felt in return.

Hey, she could dream.

Oh boy did she have dreams.

But the problem was she didn't really know how he felt for her in return. Sometimes she suspected he might love her as she loved him, but then she'd convince herself it was just her imagination. Wishful thinking. She didn't even know how hethought, much less how he felt, about...anything. On the one hand yes, he was half human and therefore had the mind of a human, but he was _also_ half canine, and as such had canine traits as well, so what if the love he felt for her, that she thought she saw in his eyes on occasion, was really like the love Shiro felt for her? What if it was just really powerful platonic love? Shiro wasn't _in_ love with her, after all. He was a dog, and she was his human. What if it was the same for Inuyasha? Well, except for his human nights, of course, and there were times she was sure she'd caught him staring at her, but like the chicken shit that she was she'd pretended not to notice.

Oh well, one of these days she'd work up the nerve to broach the subject. Either that or one day something would happen that would thrust the conversation upon them, and for better or worse she'd roll with it. In the meantime, though, she was just going to enjoy her boring, peaceful day-to-day life with Inuyasha.

She had no idea how soon her 'boring, peaceful' life was going to get a major shakeup.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

.

"Oh come on!" Kagome yelled at the TV when the next contestant playing Brain Wall, aka Human Tetris, completely botched fitting through what the miko believed had been a relatively easy shape.

Inuyasha snorted in amusement, casting a sideways glance and smirk at the miko sitting beside him on the couch.

"What do you expect?" he asked. "He's only human."

Shiro barked once, as if in agreement.

Kagome glanced down and playfully glared at the dog that was sitting on the floor between her and Inuyasha's feet. "Nobody asked _you_ ," she said, cracking a grin despite herself.

Grinning back at the miko, Shiro barked again and wagged his tail.

Rolling her eyes at the dog, Kagome reached out for the glass of water sitting in front of her on the coffee table, but her cellphone ringing had her reaching for it instead, while Inuyasha grabbed the remote and put the TV on pause. Staring at her phone a moment, Kagome saw it was the local headquarters for the Spiritual Forces, and Inuyasha was instantly on high alert when her face became deathly serious as she answered professionally with, "Higurashi."

Inuyasha's ears easily picked up the instructions Kagome received from the man on the other end of the phone. There was a large kuma-youkai, a demonic bear, running rampant in her local suburbs, and while the taijiya were already on the scene they were having difficulty dealing with it and so the head taijiya had put in a call for a reiki user. This was precisely why she'd registered as a warrior miko. Her hometown's local taijiya needed a reiki user and they needed one _now_ ; waiting for someone from the city would take precious time they didn't have.

Inuyasha processed everything in silence as Kagome got her instructions and hung up the phone before flashing him a sympathetic glance then darting upstairs to change. This was her first assignment, and she had to get a move on. They'd both known it'd only been a matter of _when_ , not _if,_ she ever got such a knew Inuyasha would worry about her, but she also knew that _he_ knew that she could take care of herself. The only negative thing Inuyasha had ever said regarding her being a warrior miko was that he wished he could go with her. He wasn't upset about her desire to be a warrior miko, knowing damn well her reasoning was not just so that she could help save human lives, but hopefully also _youkai_ lives as well. He wasn't upset about it. He was _proud_ of her.

That didn't stop him from worrying, though.

Changing into her miko robes upstairs before tying her hair back, Kagome then quickly grabbed her shoulder bag that was always ready and waiting, which contained a large supply of various ofuda as well as a taijiya issue gas mask the training facility had given her, and then taking just a second to look at herself in the mirror, Kagome nodded to herself in determination before grabbing her bow and larger quiver containing two types of arrows from the closet. Dashing back out of her room, down the hall and down the stairs, she was greeted by a visibly nervous but also proud hanyou waiting by the front door.

Holding a nervously barking Shiro back, Inuyasha shouted over the understandably agitated dog for Kagome to be careful, and as she slipped her feet into some modern day flats – she'd never mastered _running_ in geta – she paused a moment and said, "You too. We both know you'll be watching it on the news. I want you to _promise_ me that no matter what happens, you won't try to rush in to the rescue. If I go down, the last thing I want is you accidentally getting yourself killed because you showed up trying to save me and the taijiya thought you were another attacking youkai."

Inuyasha's throat got tight at the thought of Kagome being injured, and he had to blink rapidly a few times as the back of his eyes started to sting, but he nodded curtly nonetheless. "I promise."

He prayed to the kami he wouldn't live to regret that vow.

Kagome could easily read his thoughts in his eyes, but she didn't have time to dwell on it, or his possible feelings for her. Not right now. With a little luck, she'd be coming out of this unscathed so they could resume their awkward dancing around the subject of their feelings in peace. She snorted sarcastically at the thought, before quickly letting that thought go as well. She hugged him, and then she was out the door.

Hopping in her car, Kagome pulled out onto the street and headed towards the part of town where she'd been told the taijiya were facing off against the kuma-youkai. It only took a few minutes before she could feel the faint sensation of jyaki against the back of her mind, which told her that the bear-youkai was indeed corrupted, although whether or not it was a lost cause was yet to be seen. Zeroing in on the feel of the dark demonic aura, she ceased reading street signs in search of the one she'd been told to turn down and instead allowed her sixth sense to guide her, the kuma's jyaki functioning as a homing beacon.

oooooooooooooooooooo

Miroku was strolling through the forest, about half a mile from the local town's border, when his cellphone started ringing in the pouch he wore slung over his shoulder because he was working and his traditional houshi robes had no pockets. With his shakujo in his right hand, its jingling rings doing their job of scaring off the little mortal critters of the forest although the somewhat more intelligent youkai animals could sense the peaceful intentions he was exuding and knew he meant them no harm, Miroku reached into what his wife 'lovingly' referred to as his _murse_ with his left hand and answered his phone.

"Yes, my dearest?" he said as his greeting upon seeing his wife was the caller.

"How quickly can you get back to your car?" Sango asked, and the urgency in her tone immediately told him something was wrong. His smile was gone in an instant.

"What's happened?"

"We've got a tainted kuma-youkai that just showed up in the middle of town out of nowhere and has been angrily chasing people and slashing at cars," she explained. "We've got it cornered now on Tama Rd. between 3rd and 4th street, near WacDonald's, but something's not right. Our powders are barely slowing it down so my father called HQ and asked them to send in the new local warrior miko, who should be here soon. I haven't met this girl yet but if she's anything like that _last_ miko-"

"I understand," Miroku interrupted, sounding a bit out of breath because he'd already taken off running back towards where he'd left his car as he listened to his wife's explanation. "Everything's been peaceful here, so wherever this bear came from, it didn't pass through my neck of the woods," he added, using the expression literally.

Telling his wife he'd call her back after he reached his car, Miroku hung up his phone and put it away before picking up the pace as much as he could, grateful the old shrine where he'd parked his car was not _too_ far away because he'd only been an hour in on his walk and that had been at a very slow, leisurely pace.

The little friendly demonic beings of the forest who had previously been ignoring his presence could sense his sudden agitated state and as a result became more agitated themselves, not to mention he was spooking them by running as fast as his sandal-clad feet would allow.

Which actually wasn't as fast as he'd like under the circumstances.

Perhaps it was time he forwent that particular part of tradition and heeded his wife's suggestion of wearing boots.

Either way, his haste was enough to have everything else in the forest scurrying out of his way, and with all of the various small demonic forest critters fleeing deeper into the woods at his approach, Miroku was suddenly stopped in his tracks when he noticed a faint but strong demonic aura coming from his right, towards the houses that bordered the forest, rather than towards the wilds of the world to his left. He hadn't sensed its presence when he'd passed by this spot earlier, headed in the other direction, but then, the feel of all the other youki had probably masked it, like not noticing a specific conversation in a crowded room with lots of people talking. Now the forest was quiet, so to speak, and suddenly he could hear...not a faint whisper nearby, but more like distant shouting, so while it was quiet he could tell that in reality, what he was 'hearing' was _very_ loud.

But it didn't feel dark, like tainted jyaki, and Sango had said the kuma _was_ tainted, so the monk knew he had to keep his priorities in order. Any house that bordered the forest could make prime real estate for something demonic, the homeowner being none the wiser if they could not sense demonic auras, but if it wasn't tainted then it probably posed no immediate threat, and this kuma _did_.

Making a mental note to come back to this area later and investigate as soon as he could, because if some random youkai or another was indeed holed up in somebody's home then it would need to be dealt with eventually, Miroku continued running for his car, then, lamenting now more than ever that his regular checks of this part of the forest were always downhill on his way out and therefore uphill on his way back. That was what he got for parking his car at the local shrine grounds. Shrines were always at the top of a hill. Finally, after what seemed to take too long although he was sure only a few minutes had passed since Sango's phone call, the houshi made it back to where his car was parked, next to the family's car at the back of the Higurashi shrine, and he quickly drove down the narrow private road to the bottom of the hill, pulling out onto the main street.

With the official Spiritual Forces plates on his car giving him unofficial permission to break traffic laws in emergency situations, the houshi carefully weaved around the small amount of traffic on the streets, most residents already having gotten emergency notices about the active youkai situation downtown and therefore staying indoors as instructed.

oooooooooooooooooooo

Arriving on scene, Kagome's eyes widened in shock at the sight before her. On the other side of a police barricade, a group of five taijiya had the large – and clearly corrupted – bear-youkai pinned.

Well, more like trapped. It wasn't physically pinned down, yet, and it kept pacing in circles, snarling and swiping at the slayers who were rapidly depleting their collection of stink pellets in their effort to hold it in place.

So far that effort was successful, as the kuma-youkai refrained from charging directly at anyone, circling like an agitated animal in a cage as the four men on the ground all kept their specially forged weapons trained on the bear, but the powder that would have normally rendered it unconscious had hardly any effect on the corrupted kuma, the strength of its aura feeling to Kagome almost like it was actually two auras in one. She wasn't sure how to explain it, but it was obvious the taijiya weren't making any progress, and as soon as they ran out of stink pellets their standoff with the bear would be over in the worst way possible. Their demonically forged katana were no match for a creature of that strength.

Haphazardly parking her car and running out without closing the door, quiver and bow in hand and bag slung over her shoulder, the nearest police officer maintaining the perimeter by keeping curious civilians and news crews on the other side of the barricade took one look at her miko robes and weapon and waved Kagome through as she darted past the police line and headed right for the kuma-youkai.

From her position above the circle, riding upon the her trusty nekomata Kirara, Sango clutched the strap of the damaged Hiraikotsu a bit tighter as she saw the new miko arrive on the scene. It was the female taijiya's wish to incapacitate the kuma-youkai without killing it if at all possible, because she had a sinking suspicion from her learned ability to sense demonic auras that all was not as it seemed, but none of their tricks of the trade, including her trusty boomerang, had been able to even mildly injure the tainted beast. It had batted Hiraikotsu aside like a human swatting a fly, cracking the heavy weapon while sending it flying in another direction and forcing Sango and Kirara to take off after it. Now, their most powerful potions, smoke bombs that should have rendered the bear unconscious, were barely making it the least bit groggy; it was still much too dangerous to approach. Multiple tranquilizer darts meant for mortal animals also riddled its body, but it was less surprising that those had no effect given the strength of the kuma's aura.

Running up to the action, Kagome took just a second to visually scan all of the fighters, and then approached the man whose taijiya colors revealed he was the team leader.

"Kagome Higurashi reporting for duty, sir," she shouted in introduction.

"Masaru Tanaka," the senior taijiya replied as he spared the miko a quick glance before fixing his eyes back on the kuma. He had his sword drawn and aimed at the beast, as did they all, and as soon as the smoke started to dissipate one of Masaru's men threw down yet another stink pellet.

"Better stay back," he said to Kagome then, since she wasn't wearing a gas mask like the rest of them.

But while Kagome hadn't yet had the opportunity to get to know any of her local taijiya, as being a new recruit had meant the training facility first had to teach her all the basics before she could join in on field exercises, which she'd been scheduled to start in another month, having a few training sessions under her belt at least meant she knew how to handle herself in a situation like this one. She immediately reached for the mask in her bag and put it on.

"Oh, good," Masaru commented with a pleased nod as he noticed.

Having never met this miko he knew she was going to be green, but he hadn't known _how_ green, and HQ had cleared her for this assignment because despite not having done any field training yet her reiki levels were almost off the chart and, according to her instructor, she was one hell of an archer. That had been good enough for Masaru.

Unaware of her overhead audience – Kagome had seen the woman up on the nekomata but just wasn't aware _she_ was the focus of that woman's attention instead of the bear – she pulled an arrow from her quiver. "Permission to attempt stunning the animal, saving death for a last resort?" she asked Masaru then.

The head taijiya glanced back her way at her words and immediately noticed the arrow she was charging up with purifying energy had a large black rubber blunt over the tip. The serious man's face cracked the smallest of smiles.

"Well isn't that clever," he said, commending the miko on her ingenuity. "Never seen anyone try that before but yes, permission granted. Let's see if it works."

After realizing how strong the kuma was he'd thought purification was going to be the only way, but if there was still a chance to save the bear's life he was all for it, and he knew his daughter felt the same way.

"I just never could master the art of _throwing_ ofuda," Kagome explained as she drew back her bow string. "Using blunt arrows instead had actually been my mom's idea. She reminded me that my toy bow and arrows set as a small child had used suction cup arrows."

Up on Kirara, Sango watched, biting her lower lip, as Kagome got into position, silently praying for Miroku to suddenly arrive on the scene. She knew she was in no position to shout anything down to the miko as if she were actually in charge of this operation instead of her father. He was team leader and when he'd made the decision to request the miko Sango had known it was for the greater good. Saving human lives had to come first, after all, and Sango also knew her viewpoint surrounding youkai was not shared by every member of their team. Save for her father, who was at least sympathetic to her viewpoint, she knew her fellow taijiya would be quite satisfied to just slay the bear and be done with it.

As the young miko drew and aimed her arrow she was speaking to Sango's father but the airborne taijiya could not hear what she was saying over the kuma's continual roaring. Unable to see any definition to the arrow itself as it began glowing with purifying energy, she wanted to turn her head and look away, but on the other hand, she _couldn't_ look away, like watching a train wreck. She had prayed that this new miko would be different from the last one, someone who'd been sent in from the city, but the fact that she'd gone straight for an arrow without even bothering to try an ofuda first had the female taijiya believing those prayers had gone unanswered. Sango failed to notice the fact that the arrows in Kagome's quiver actually had two different colored fletchings, either white or black, and that the miko had looked back at her arrows before selecting which one to grab.

Kagome let her arrow fly.

The arrow soared through the air, glowing a bright pink with her purification powers, and struck the bear's right shoulder. There was a brief flash of light, and the bear roared even louder in surprised pain, but as fast as the jolt of power came, it was gone, as if the bear had been momentarily zapped with electricity. With the blunt rubber tip of her arrow not penetrating the bear's flesh, the purifying effects of Kagome's reiki could not reach deep within its being, and also, the arrow fell to the ground, no longer touching the bear, before expending its full charge. Stunned, surprised both by the quick instant of pain and also by the fact that it was still alive afterwards, only a small burnt patch of fur and skin on its right shoulder where the arrow had briefly made contact, Kagome took quick advantage of the moment she'd hoped surprising the kuma with a blunt arrow would create and darted forward, another rubber-tipped arrow already in her hand. She shot that one as she approached, the arrow nailing the kuma right between the eyes as it turned to face her, growling a low warning. It yelped and whimpered when the second arrow struck it, shaking its head, and Kagome reached for the handful of sealing ofuda in her shoulder bag.

Sango watched the whole thing unfold from her position up on Kirara with a dumbfounded grin slowly climbing up her face as she realized that after being shot with _two_ purifying arrows the kuma-youkai was still alive. With the other taijiya backing up enough to give her room to work, the miko quickly rushed around the entire creature, then, riddling it with ofuda, which from the lack of any sort of crackling of spiritual light as they made contact with the bear's fur immediately told the taijiya they were sealing in nature, rather than purifying. She was using way more ofuda than should have been necessary (usually only one would suffice, or possibly two or three if the beast was very powerful) but under the circumstances, Sango didn't blame the miko one bit for not wanting to take any chances.

After all, the presence of extra sealing ofuda would not harm the kuma-youkai in any way. It was like the equivalent of putting five blindfolds on somebody when merely one would suffice. Sealed was sealed. There was no such thing as being _extra_ sealed, and being sealed also wasn't painful. Glancing down the street as Miroku's car arrived on scene, Sango exhaled a quiet sigh of relief. Had this miko turned out to be like the _other_ one her husband's arrival would have come too late. Now, she got to happily inform Miroku that this Kagome person appeared to be one of the good ones. She hadn't even met her yet and already Sango felt that Kagome was a keeper.

"Come on Kirara, let's get back down there."

Roaring her obedience, the nekomata made her descent.

"That was quite impressive," Masaru said as Kagome studied the now _quite_ sealed kuma-youkai, the still fully conscious animal meeting her eyes with something she recognized as pain in their red-tinted depths, and not pain caused by anything either she or the taijiya had done to it. The very minor burns already looked like they were healing, which was another red flag in and of itself because while youkai healed fast they didn't normally heal _that_ fast.

"I couldn't just kill it without knowing why it was attacking in the first place," Kagome replied. "Like their mortal cousins, kuma-youkai usually aren't so vicious unless they're starving or their cubs are in danger. And even if it'd been lost and desperately looking for food, that wouldn't explain why it was so impervious to your usual techniques."

Hearing the feline roar of the nekomata overhead, Kagome glanced Sango and Kirara's way before resuming her intense study of the captured kuma.

"Even now, it's exuding more youki than should be possible while sealed." Closing her eyes, she delved deeper. "And I'm sensing two distinct auras. Its natural youki, and something else, tainted with jyaki. Something is corrupting the bear."

"That was the conclusion we'd reached, as well," Sango said as she approached holding a kitten-sized Kirara.

"My daughter, Sango," Masaru introduced.

"Pleased to meet you," Kagome said with a small bow.

Just then a panting Miroku rushed onto the scene, his own ofuda at the ready although he quickly realized they were not needed.

"I see you guys have everything under control," he said, relieved, as he tucked his ofuda back into his own shoulder bag. "Maybe a little overkill, minus the kill part," he added with a chuckle when he noticed just _how_ many sealing ofuda were covering the bear's body.

Kagome merely shrugged. "Better safe than sorry," she replied, not in the least bit embarrassed.

Masaru, who had already known Sango had called her houshi husband in, merely turned to his son-in-law and asked, "And there was no evidence of this bear's passage through the section of forest you were patrolling this morning?" Sango had relaid that part of their conversation with her father because it was pertinent information. If the kuma-youkai hadn't come from the forest, where _did_ it come from?

"No, sir," Miroku answered. "Even sealed, its youki is still massive. I could feel its aura as I approached and immediately noticed the difference as the sealing ofuda were applied. I would have sensed its full, unsealed aura for miles if it'd entered town through the western forest."

At his mention of the western forest, Kagome snapped her fingers in recognition. "I thought you looked familiar," she said, sticking out her hand to shake his in greeting. "Kagome Higurashi."

"Higurashi?" Miroku asked, his eyes lighting up in delight. "Ah! But of course! How are you fairing? Your family told me you'd won the lottery and bought yourself the home you'd been eyeing since childhood."

"I did indeed," Kagome replied with a nod. "The kami were very generous."

"You two know each other?" Sango asked, mildly surprised seeing as Miroku had never mentioned knowing who the new local on-call warrior miko was going to be.

"Not well," Miroku clarified. "It's her family shrine, the Higurashi shrine, that I use as my entry point to that section of forest during my patrols. We'd spoken a few times before she moved out a few years ago."

"And I wasn't planning on becoming a warrior miko back then," Kagome chimed in, unconsciously fiddling with the shoulder strap of her quiver. "In fact, when I first moved out, I had gotten myself a job as a waitress and was just renting an apartment nearby, trying to live a quote-unquote normal life," she said with a laugh. "I always figured that if trouble arose, my place would be at the shrine, helping to maintain a barrier, although really, my brother's more than powerful enough to handle that task on his own. He'll be taking over as shrine priest one day, and I'd thought that outside of the occasional activity that called for having a miko on hand I'd just worry about working my job and paying my bills. Then I won the lottery."

"Lucky," Sango said, petting Kirara. She'd noticed Kagome glance down at the nekomata in her arms, and the miko had actually smiled at the feline youkai, as if Kirara were merely an adorable kitten and not a powerful creature some people would consider a monster. Sango might not've known much about Kagome, yet, but already she could safely say that she liked the girl.

"I guess it was then in part needing something to _do_ with my life, since I no longer needed to work, and also my long held belief that youkai are just another creation of the kami and as such just as deserving of the right to exist as anything else, that had me realize that if I became a warrior miko I could do my part in protecting both human lives _and_ youkai ones," Kagome added then, while gesturing to the sealed kuma. "I'm aware other warrior miko might've just purified the poor thing and been done with it, and society would have probably praised them for it, too, but I'll only use deadly force as a last resort."

Sango nodded with a slight cringe Kagome didn't notice as the miko turned back and resumed examining the sealed kuma-youkai more closely.

While watching Kagome work, Sango thought back to the last miko they'd had to work with, a warrior miko named Kikyou who lived in the city. She had not, shall we say, been nearly as compassionate about youkai rights as Kagome was. In fact, the woman had even criticized Sango for her use of Kirara, telling her the nekomata should not be trusted, or at least not without a set of subjugation beads to ensure her obedience. Sango had tried to explain to Kikyou that Kirara was her _partner_ , like a police officer and their police dog. The nekomata was a part of their _family;_ all of the taijiya at their local branch trusted and respected the neko because they knew the difference between good and evil youkai, and Kirara, who had actually been bred by Sango's family a couple of generations back, had been with the taijiya for _years_. The slayer had then none-too-politely suggested to the miko that _she_ had better brush up on the subject of _good_ youkai since her judgment on the matter was clearly impaired.

Needless to say, that confrontation had made Sango downright dread the prospect of having to work with Kikyou again after that day, and so while she'd been nervous about what the new miko's views were going to turn out to be, she had definitely been relieved there at least _was_ a new miko, and that HQ had cleared her for this assignment instead of insisting on sending in Kikyou again.

Working with Kikyou had been a nightmare, and not just because the woman had insulted Kirara after the attacking youkai had been dealt with. She had also refused to coordinate with Sango during their collaborative attack on said youkai, taking over the mission as if Sango and the other taijiya were not even present. Kirara had even had to dive out of the way of one of Kikyou's arrows because she'd fired without warning. Masaru had given her a dressing down for that one, but Kikyou had merely replied that _they_ were the ones who had called _her_ because they had been unable to handle the youkai problem – in that case, an escaped snake-youkai somebody had been keeping in captivity – by themselves.

Thinking back on that incident had Sango questioning if they were dealing with a similar situation this time. If somebody had been housing the kuma-youkai somewhere within the neighborhood, and it had actually been trying to make its way _to_ the forest, that would explain why it had shown up in their hometown seemingly out of nowhere, without any of their patrols in the surrounding forest having spotted its approach.

Unaware of the taijiya's thoughts, Kagome's eyes were closed as she concentrated, reaching out with tendrils of her aura that were like feelers she used to poke and prod against the aura of the kuma-youkai. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for, namely a _second_ demonic aura.

"There appears to be some kind of tainted object in physical contact with the kuma," she told the others then as she glanced back their way.

Once again giving the kuma her complete attention, Kagome started to physically examine the beast, then. The other taijiya that'd been circling it with their weapons drawn were staying nearby, just in case, but everyone knew the kuma shouldn't be able to move so nobody was too worried about Kagome getting that close to it. It glared at her, and growled so deep in its throat she felt it more than heard it, but with all the sealing ofuda on its body it could do little more than glare and growl and so she ignored that the best she could and continued with her inspection. It once again didn't take her long to find what she was looking for when she spotted the small dagger sticking out of the side of its neck. The short black handle was almost fully concealed by the bear's thick dark brown, almost black fur, but she spotted it.

"Oh kami...you poor thing," she said.

"Kagome?" asked Sango.

"It's got a blade in its neck, and that's where the feel of jyaki is coming from," she explained.

"By Buddha..." Miroku murmured, aghast. "Being in physical contact with a tainted object would certainly explain its elevated and corrupted aura."

"Not to mention being stabbed in the neck would piss _anyone_ off," Sango chimed in. "Certainly explains the unusually high hostility, and then the taint from the blade's jyaki just fueled it even further."

Miroku looked at his wife. "No wonder your usual potions for normal forest youkai weren't strong enough to subdue it."

Ignoring what was being said behind her, Kagome wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the dagger. "This might hurt a little, and I'm sorry," she told the bear, staring into its red-rimmed eye that if looks could kill, would have dropped her where she stood. "I'm not trying to purify you, just the knife, so try to remain calm."

Everyone watched as Kagome spoke to the bear-youkai. Nobody thought she was acting strangely because everyone knew large animal youkai such as the kuma were a lot more intelligent than their mortal counterparts, and in fact Sango's heart swelled as she heard the miko address the youkai with such tenderness. Kagome was being so gentle; she really did have the kuma-youkai's best interest at heart, and Sango and her father shared a knowing look and nod. They liked her.

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Kagome attempted to localize her reiki and focus her aim exclusively on the dagger. She could have just pulled it out, and doing so would have certainly removed its corrupting influence from the bear, but without knowing how badly the youkai was hurt there was no telling if removing the blade from its neck could lead to its death, as would probably be the case with a mortal animal, at least without medical intervention. While youkai could take a _lot_ more punishment than their mortal counterparts, and could heal from things that would unquestionably be deadly to a mortal animal, bleeding out was still a possibility for the kuma if the dagger, which felt like a powerful demonic weapon, left behind any sort of miasma in the wound that could hinder the bear's natural healing abilities. It was for that reason that Kagome felt purifying the dagger first, which would also automatically purify the immediate flesh the dagger was in contact with, would render any possible such 'demonic attacks' created by the weapon fully neutralized. It would be like cauterizing the wound.

Concentrating, she poured her energy into the knife, and the kuma-youkai growled but couldn't so much as flinch thanks to the multitude of sealing ofuda covering its body. Then as quickly as her reiki came, it receded again, back inside her body, and the kuma immediately stopped growling, a soft whimper escaping its throat instead.

"There there..." she cooed, and then she pulled out the blade.

What might well have been a fatal wound on a mortal animal would heal in a matter of hours on the kuma now that there was no risk of lingering foreign jyaki acting like an infection or poison, and with the spiritual influence of the tainted dagger gone from its being Kagome met the kuma's intelligent, sad, warm brown eyes and murmured softly to the gentle giant that it had nothing to fear from them. They weren't going to kill it.

"Amazing," Masaru said then, as Kagome handed him the dagger, the blade of which appeared to be made out of youkai bone with horn for the handle.

"No wonder it was tainted," Kagome said, in reference to the bear, "with this thing sticking out of its neck. Who would do such a thing?"

 _And where would they have gotten such a weapon?!_

"How could there be a finished dagger made from youkai bones that hadn't been purified first?"

Kagome didn't understand it. While such demonic weapons were fairly common, and indeed it was what the taijiya used because standard steel would never penetrate youkai flesh without either reiki or youki running through it, youkai remains needed to be purified first before they could be made into weapons, or else the souls of the deceased youkai would haunt the objects made from their bones. Everyone in their line of work knew that, and no weapons smith who dealt with youkai remains would be so careless. A humanoid youkai might want a power weapon forged from one of its own fangs, but that was different, something made by youkai, for youkai, and humans could not handle such demonically charged weaponry without losing themselves to that power.

This blade hadn't felt like that, though. It'd merely felt tainted in the way a taijiya's weapon might feel were it not properly purified, not infused with youki as if the weapon had its own soul, but rather, haunted by the spirit of the youkai the remains had belonged to. It was something a layman human might not even be able to sense, although the darkness would probably start to affect them subliminally over time. The fact that it had not been a youkai forged power weapon but rather the type of weapon humans made from youkai remains told Kagome that it had probably been owned by a human, and the fact that such weapons were needed to injure more powerful youkai when reiki was not an option implied that whoever had stabbed the poor kuma in the neck had known this and had chosen that weapon on purpose because they had indeed been trying to kill it. A side effect of the dagger not having been properly purified instead meant that the kuma had increased in demonic strength while also turning abnormally vicious. Anybody who had known the dagger was tainted should have also known that that would be the result, but if the intention had been to taint the kuma, for whatever reason, there were easier ways to go about it, so Kagome believed corrupting the bear-youkai with jyaki had probably been an accident.

She was still baffled by the fact that such a dagger had existed in the first place, though.

"Unfortunately, we see a lot of unpurified youkai bone weapons on the black market," Miroku explained to her then, his expression grim. "A different division of the Spiritual Forces is tasked with combating the problem."

Kagome's jaw dropped.

"Really?!" she asked in total disbelief. Miroku nodded. Shaking her head, Kagome said, "Who would do something so..."

"Stupid?" Sango supplied.

"Yeah."

Sango shrugged.

"Honestly, I don't understand it either. It's not like it's illegal to own objects made from youkai remains, so long as they're _purified._ Just get one from a reputable dealer. But since only registered smiths are legally allowed to _make_ youkai weapons some people must just think they're too expensive, and so they look elsewhere."

"We don't even try to regulate it that strongly," Masaru chimed in then. "Our main concern is public safety, so if someone buys an illegal demonic weapon, but got a reiki user to purify it, we'd probably never even know. It's not like we do raids and check every house for demonic weapons and demand to see their registration."

Kagome nodded her understanding and agreement. No matter what, they couldn't resort to _that_ sort of behavior.

"So there's a sect of houshi whose job it is to check places like swap meets and county fairs, looking for demonic blades, but their job isn't to confiscate them, merely purify them," Masaru continued then.

"We'd better get the kuma loaded up so everyone can get back to their lives," Miroku said then, not referring to themselves, but all the onlookers, both present on the other side of the police barricade, and those watching it all unfold live on the news.

Looking beyond the police line, Kagome wasn't surprised to see the camera crews still rolling. Youkai attacks like this one were few and far between, after all, and definitely news worthy.

"You want to do the honors?" Sango asked, a smirk crooking up her lips. "You're sort of the hero here, after all, and the rest of us can take it from here as far as loading the kuma up in the van."

"Me…?" Kagome asked, before glancing back at the reporters again, two of whom caught her looking their way and eagerly waved her over to them.

"Okay, sure, no problem," Kagome said then, her words dripping with sarcasm, but Miroku, Sango and Masaru only laughed before going to speak with the other taijiya about loading up the immobile bear.

Facing the music, Kagome tamped down her jitters, and finding a hint of amusement at herself that she hadn't been nervous in the slightest as she'd dealt with the bear-youkai and instead it was the thought of public speaking that was raising her hackles, she sucked it up the best she could and approached the reporters who'd been waving her over.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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Stuck at home, and trying to keep an agitated akita mix calm although it was a hard task to accomplish when the dog could sense his own agitated state, Inuyasha watched as Kagome's angelic face and voice streamed through the flat screen television mounted above the fireplace, two sets of erect white doggie ears aimed straight ahead to catch every word. After a moment, the humanoid man possessing such ears turned his head and glanced down to address his fully canine companion sitting beside him on the sofa.

"She's fucking amazing, isn't she?" Inuyasha said, in awe of what he had just witnessed.

After seeing for himself just what kind of beast she'd been up against, not only would he have not held it against her if she'd just purified the fucker outright, he'd actually been yelling "Just kill it!" at the TV.

He would've been worried the neighbors might've heard him if he didn't know both nearest houses on either side were empty, their owners currently at work while the kids were in school.

Woofing his agreement, Shiro licked the hanyou's face and jumped down off the couch. Chuckling, Inuyasha turned off the TV, since Kagome's brief interview was already over, and headed upstairs to browse the Internet.

He still felt a little guilty about her spending so much money on him. Buying him a computer and giving him a budget and account to buy his own things online and all that. But inspiration had struck. Even though he knew she was financially secure now, that she wasn't in danger of going over her original budget thanks to her extra income from the Spiritual Forces, he would still feel so much better if he could earn his _own_ money for his frivolous expenditures, and thanks to his laptop and the wonders of the Internet he just might be able to pull it off.

Since they couldn't purify him human, and some kind of disguise to merely make him _look_ human was out of the question because any random reiki user he happened upon would be able to sense what he was, his _only_ chance for getting a 'job' and becoming a functioning member of society was over the Internet. He still couldn't really get a _job_ over the Internet,but he could be unofficially self-employed, and he had his sights set on trying to make and sell some kind of craft.

What, specifically, he wasn't quite sure yet. He was waiting for inspiration to strike a second time.

Cracking his computer open and firing it up, it didn't take long to boot and then he was opening his web browser. For the last few days he'd spent some time checking out the various popular sites where other people sold _their_ crafts, trying to get ideas. He didn't want to _copy_ anyone, but he had to start somewhere, right? There were so many types of crafts to choose from, though. He was almost spoiled for choice.

He spent the next twenty minutes or so clicking through listings of handmade jewelry, stuffed animals, needlepoint pillows, and people advertising their services for custom t-shirts and bumper stickers, making mental note of the things he thought he might be able to do himself with a little practice, until his stomach growling reminded him that he'd forgotten to eat any lunch while he'd been transfixed watching Kagome deal with that kuma on the news.

 _Kagome..._

Shaking his head, he just closed his laptop, leaving everything open for now as he headed back downstairs to zap himself some ramen.

"Heh, maybe I should figure out how to invent a cup noodle that prepares itself. I'd make a killing," he joked to himself as he grabbed one of the cardboard wrapped Styrofoam cups from the cupboard.

Disregarding the official directions, he filled the cup with water before sticking it in the microwave for a minute and a half. Then with nothing to do for the next ninety seconds but watch them count down, he found his thoughts drifting back to a certain miko yet again.

There was no point in denying it. He had it bad. He was relieved she'd had the whole kuma-youkai situation under control from the moment she'd gotten there because if he'd seen the bear take a swing at her and she'd been injured he wasn't 100% sure he'd have been able to keep his promise not to run to her rescue, consequences be damned.

Oh, he wouldn't have charged straight in shouting Kagome's name. Watching the news on pins and needles while waiting for her to get there, having turned on the TV as soon as she'd left, he'd had enough time to work out a hypothetical plan of action, and if he _had_ rushed in he would've pretended he was just randomly in the area and had decided to help out the humans, killing the bear and then hopefully taking back off again before any of the taijiya could get to him while also hopefully keeping the fact that he and Kagome knew each other a secret.

He was tremendously glad, though, that it hadn't come to that.

Just like he was tremendously glad that, as of yet, Kagome had no romantic interests, and indeed outside of her originally telling him her plan upon buying the house had been to live her whole life and _raise a family_ there – as opposed to reselling the place – she'd never made mention of even _trying_ to meet anybody with whom she could accomplish such a goal.

"Bah, I gotta stop thinking about this," he said abruptly, before scarfing down his noodles. Shiro looked at him with a curious tilt of his head then resumed eating his own lunch of dry kibble.

Tossing his empty ramen cup in the trash and his plastic chopsticks in the sink – he'd wash them later, he didn't make Kagome clean up after him – Inuyasha headed back upstairs and sat back down at his desk before opening and waking up his laptop. Resuming his perusal of other people's crafts, his eyes widened a bit at someone's listing selling hand carved wooden Buddhas.

Now _there_ was an idea. Not Buddhas per se, but wood carvings in general were a fabulous idea. It would be a craft that didn't require he invest in any sorts of supplies first, which was definitely a plus. With the forest practically in his own backyard he had a virtually endless supply of wood, and there were always the occasional trees felled by larger, clumsier youkai. If he cleared away the dead and broken trees instead of cutting down something himself it'd actually be beneficial to the forest, so long as nothing called the dead tree its home.

He didn't know _what_ to carve, yet, but feeling energized from at least having a game plan now, and seeing as it wasn't a craft that required he first buy any sort of supplies, he wanted to immediately get to work on practicing. Plus he needed something to do to burn up all his adrenaline from when he'd been watching Kagome on the news. Going for a run in the forest would probably do him some good. He could stretch his legs, get some fresh air, and while he was out he'd look for a decent sized chunk of wood to bring back home to start tinkering with.

Nodding to himself, he shut off his computer, double checked that all the windows were closed and locked, and then grabbed his cellphone and house key...two more things Kagome had _insisted_ on getting for him, but these he hadn't argued with her about because they made sense. The key he needed because they'd repaired his 'escape hatch' in the roof, so he no longer had that means of entry, but fortunately he could just walk right out the back door because the way the other houses were set up meant that nobody could see him. As for the phone, which was a simple flip phone because he didn't need anything fancy when he had his laptop for the Internet, she'd asked him to make sure he always had it on him whenever he went out into the forest, which he still did on occasion, like now, when he needed to burn off some energy. He was free to do whatever he wanted, but she'd asked only that he stay in touch with her, let her know of his plans. He hadn't argued about it because liked the idea that she missed him when he was gone and would worry about him if he was gone too long, and so he'd readily accepted her gift of a cellphone and had let her show him how to use it even though he already knew what a telephone was. He wouldn't call her now, of course, since she was _busy_ , but this way, if he wasn't back by the time she got home she'd know to call him. He also wrote a note and left it on the dining room table where it'd be easy to spot. It just said 'Went for a run, have my phone and key. Saw the news. Good job!'

He didn't want her thinking he'd skipped out without watching her moment of glory, after all. He'd tell her about the wood carving idea in person, though.

"Be a good boy while I'm gone," he said to Shiro, along with a woof that was basically a command to behave, which earned a woof in reply that was basically the equivalent of a little kid's promise to be good, meaning the dog would probably be getting into mischief while he was alone. Inuyasha just snorted a chuckle and headed out the door.

Glad he'd gotten into the habit of always wearing a comfortable pair of jogging shorts underneath his hakama – he'd changed into his fire-rat robes in preparation for possibly needing to run to Kagome's aid – he now didn't need to waste time changing because he always wore his demonic robes in the forest, as well, and seeing as they were archaic, traditional robes, they had no pockets. The shorts he had on underneath his hakama, did, and thanks to the nature of the hakama's side slits he had easy access to his pockets, where he stashed his phone, putting the key around his wrist after locking the backdoor as it was on a plastic stretch cord.

Back in the middle of town and what had become quite the center of activity, things were just starting to get back to normal, tow trucks hauling off the cars that had been damaged by the kuma before the taijiya had managed to corner it.

With her services not required to move the kuma now that it was both unconscious and still quite sealed, another dose of the taijiya's sleeping powder successfully working on it since its aura had gone back to normal, Kagome went back with the majority of the taijiya to the local office for the boring but legally required part of the job that was filling out and filing an incident report, while Sango, Miroku and one other handled the relocation of the poor creature.

Getting it into a transport vehicle with Kirara's assistance, Miroku followed the taijiya in his own car as they headed towards the western forest via the Higurashi Shrine, the three of them having chosen that location primarily because that was the closest forest access and everyone agreed they should get the kuma returned to the wild as quickly as possible. Once they got the van to the parking area behind the shrine, which was intentionally beyond the border of the spiritual barrier surrounding most of the property so that it was safe to transport youkai into the woods via this location, it was a group effort to get the kuma draped across Kirara's back and out of the van. It was deemed worth the difficulty because while under normal circumstances they'd just walk a heavily drugged youkai without any ofuda, and the kuma should theoreticaly be much less hostile now that the tainted dagger had been removed, they just didn't want to take any chances.

They walked for about an hour, the kuma regaining consciousness during that time, and Sango, who'd gotten very good at deciphering the facial expressions of animal youkai over the years, smiled as she took note of the bear's peaceful expression. The beast was aware they were helping it, and it was probably such a huge relief to be rid of the unwanted negative energy brought on by the unpurified dagger that the kuma wasn't even angry about the sealing ofuda any longer. It had realized they meant it no harm, probably fully recalling its previous behavior, and knew that they _could_ have killed it, and so the fact that they were instead going to set it free brought the demonic bear a sense of relief. Originally, Sango was going to give it another dose of sleeping herbs before having Miroku remove the ofuda, but now, she didn't think that would be necessary.

"This feels like as good a spot as any," Miroku said after a while. "I can feel other youkai all around but nothing hostile like an oni, just peaceful woodland youkai."

Kirara crouched down and allowed the kuma to be pulled slowly from her back. The humans were careful not to injure the beast, or let it land in an uncomfortable heap seeing as it couldn't move on its own, and soon enough the bear was lying comfortably on its belly on the forest floor, fully alert from the previous dose of sleeping herbs having worn off although its expression was still peaceful. Miroku sensed no negativity in its aura.

"All right, are you ready?" he asked the kuma-youkai then, meeting its eyes. "I'm going to remove the ofuda one by one, and you're going to remain still until I'm finished, and then you're going to go off into the woods and steer clear of humans, got it?"

Looking the bear in the eyes, Miroku could see intelligence there, and with its aura still feeling peaceful – a sensation not caused by the sealing ofuda because they did not hamper a youkai's youki in any way – he began removing said ofuda from the bear's body one at a time.

The kuma-youkai obediently remained perfectly still, even as it must have gradually felt the spiritual pressure holding it in place lessen bit by bit as Miroku removed more of the seals from its body. Finally, there was only one left, and from the strength of the kuma's natural youki Miroku would bet it could already move a little, but it obeyed him nonetheless and waited until he removed that final ofuda. Then the kuma slowly rose to its feet, looked briefly at the houshi before glancing at Sango and the other taijiya, plus the nekomata that was now sitting in kitten form on Sango's shoulder, a sign the feline knew it could be trusted, and showing that trust was not misplaced the kuma released a soft gurgle-like roar that in no way sounded threatening before turning and ambling off deeper into the forest, _away_ from town.

There was a collective sigh of relief from our trio of warriors, and as Miroku watched the bear disappear through the trees he asked his wife to stay with him a moment, telling the other taijiya to head back without them. "I'll take you to HQ in a little while so you can get your paperwork done, but I wanted to discuss something with you first," he told his wife cryptically.

Thinking the houshi probably just wanted some alone time with his wife, not that he could blame him, the other taijiya nodded his understanding and headed back to the van alone. He offered to take Kirara back with him but the nekomata mewed once and stayed put on Sango's shoulder.

Miroku rolled his eyes at the man's retreating back. Honestly, as much as he loved getting his wife _alone_ he didn't want to 'do' anything in a forest full of youkai. He'd have to have a talk with that man. Fortunately Sango seemed to miss the look he'd given Miroku, so waiting just a moment for the guy to get out of hearing range she asked her husband seriously, "What is it?"

She'd been able to tell tell from his tone that he hadn't just wanted to have some peaceful alone time with her to leisurely stroll back to his car.

He told her about the demonic aura he'd sensed coming from the row of houses earlier, when he'd been racing back to his car after her phone call, and how all the woodland youkai had fled from him deeper into the woods except for whatever _that_ youkai was, which had felt awfully close to the homes that bordered the treeline.

"It might be nothing," he acknowledged. "It might have just been some random forest youkai who, just like mortal wild animals might sometimes do, had wandered into somebody's yard for a drink of water, or – as unfortunate a prospect as it might be – it could have been hunting somebody's dog or cat."

He tilted his head as he thought back on the sensation, which he admittedly hadn't allowed himself to analyze for very long at the time because he'd been in such a hurry.

"It could very well be that this youkai, upon sensing me rushing through, had thought it better to remain where it was. After all, to run deeper into the woods at that point would have actually meant running _towards_ me," he conceded. "But even so, I thought it would be best if I double checked that it was gone now, and while I doubt whatever it is will be something serious enough for me to honestly require your assistance, since I don't _know_ what it is I feel more comfortable having you and Kirara by my side, just in case."

One of the things Sango had always loved about her husband was that he was not threatened by her abilities as a warrior. Another thing she loved about him was his ability to always make her laugh.

Deciding the seriousness of the moment could use a little lightening up he added, "Plus bringing you with me 'in case I need your help' is a wonderful excuse for us to spend some time alone together." Adopting a feigned pout he added, "I hardly see you anymore."

"Except for every morning and every evening, and our joint days off together every week because my father permitted my schedule to match yours," Sango pointed out with an eye roll.

"Exactly! We're practically strangers!"

Laughing despite herself, Sango walked with her husband back towards the shrine until they reached the point where he had originally veered off to the side to walk parallel to the town's edge during his earlier patrol of this section of forest. They didn't travel too far out when they both felt a sudden unexplainable blast of youki that was _very_ powerful and gone just as quickly as it'd appeared.

"What on Earth...?" Sango blurted, as Kirara meowed and jumped down.

 _That almost felt like the energy released when a daiyoukai uses one of its youki-based attacks, but there's not any daiyoukai anywhere near here_.

"Looks like you were right to want to investigate," she said to Miroku then.

"Unfortunately," Miroku agreed, as they started running in the direction they'd felt the blast of energy from.

oooooooooooooooooooo

Satisfied with the large chunk of wood he'd severed from a fallen tree with a quick strike of Sankon Tessou, Inuyasha picked up the section of log that would have been much too heavy for a human to lift and slung it up and over his shoulder like it was a gardening tool as he casually made his way back to the house, holding the log against his right shoulder with his right arm draped over it while his left arm swung freely at his side. Suddenly, though, he realized he could sense the reiki of the monk who occasionally walked the forest to guard it from threats, and it felt like he was heading his way!

Inuyasha knew all about the monks who occasionally walked the forest; there had been several to take up the task throughout the years. But he also knew they were looking for troublesome oni and frankly, Inuyasha was not only not worried about their presence but he was grateful for it. He didn't want some lowly oni stomping through town any more than the next guy, and if one had ever tried it he would have risked outing himself if it meant protecting his and the neighboring houses. He could have always lied and told any humans who saw him that he'd tracked the oni from within the forest and then disappeared into the trees before anyone could question him further, after all. But never had it actually been an issue, and neither had any of the monks ever previously bothered him, because he had always made sure to keep his youki as calm and peaceful as possible so that any reiki users nearby, forest monks or otherwise, would believe him to be one of the little harmless things that lived in the woods. That was why Kagome had originally thought he was a kitsune, when she had been able to tell the difference between his youki and the aura of a ghost, but _not_ that he was actually the son of a daiyoukai. Just like a daiyoukai, Inuyasha had the ability, if he worked at it, to make his aura feel much weaker than it really was. He could also flare it in a show of power, if he wanted to, but doing so while one of the forest monks were nearby had never been his intention!

Inuyasha quickly realized with a growing feeling of dread that this particular houshi must have been close enough to sense his momentary burst of youki as he'd used his attack on the tree, and dropping the log from his shoulder with a loud crash, he cursed his inability to _sense_ auras from great distances. He could feel them, but only after they were relatively close by. His greatest sense, by far, was his sense of smell, and his _nose_ could pick up the sparkling sting of reiki far better than his mental sixth sense could, but the houshi must have been downwind. It was also possible he'd just been distracted, excited as he'd been at the prospect of experimenting with wood carving.

 _Crap..._

Well, there was nothing for it now. From the sound of it, as his ears flicked left and right, there were two sets of human footprints rapidly approaching, along with something that sounded like a large four-legged animal and the frantic chiming of the houshi's shakujo. Taking a deep breath he could smell them now, too. Two humans, one of which possessed reiki, and a nekomata. He quickly put two and two together and figured the other human was the female taijiya he'd seen on the news riding upon a nekomata.

 _Double crap._

He'd rather deal with two reiki users than a taijiya! Reiki couldn't kill him, but a taijiya sure could. Another deep inhale revealed they also smelled strongly of kuma-youkai, which confirmed the non-reiki user was indeed who he thought it was.

He also belatedly realized that _of course_ his forest was the closest one for them to have released the kuma-youkai into. Knowing they were going to be dealing with returning that kuma to the wild he really should _not_ have gone out looking for fallen logs to carve right now, excitement over deciding what kind of craft making to do be damned.

 _I've done some pretty stupid things before but I think this takes the fucking cake..._

He was close to the house. Inuyasha knew he could easily outrun them. But the houshi would be able to sense which way he'd gone and leading them back to the house was the _l_ _ast_ thing he wanted to do. So he took off at a dead run in the other direction, away from the house. When _f_ _ight_ wasn't an option _flight_ was all that was left. He couldn't attack these humans. But if they had attacked _him_ he would need to defend himself. It was better this wa-

"Gah!"

Inuyasha barelydodged the giant boomerang that had come out of freakin' _nowhere,_ sailing directly in front of his path, causing him to skid to a halt so quickly he stumbled and landed face first on the forest floor.

 _Great, just fucking great! I thought that weapon was damaged!_ he cursed in his mind.

Indeed the Hiraikotsu _was_ damaged. It'd developed a crack when the kuma had swatted it out of the way. But Sango had not been aiming at Inuyasha, but rather, in _front_ of him, intending to miss him and merely force him to stop.

In some other universe, perhaps, if his lot in life had been different, then Inuyasha would have had keen battle skills and would have known how to properly defend himself against such an opponent, but such was not the case for the hanyou that hardly ever left the safety of his childhood home for more than a few hours at a time.

His momentary stumble was all the two humans needed to catch up with him, too, and as he glanced up in time to watch the woman warrior effortlessly reclaim her weapon as it went soaring near her body, her hand snatching it out of the air without ever taking her eyes off of his prone form, Inuyasha realized she had indeed 'missed' on purpose. If they didn't intend to kill him outright, that was a very good thing, so he would be on his best behavior. Rising to his feet, then, he made sure to move slowly, keeping his hands out and open at his sides so that they could see he didn't have any weapons nor was he charging up his youki in his claws. The transformed nekomata standing beside her mistress could read his intentions and sat on her haunches, and it was more Kirara's behavior than Inuyasha's that had Sango and Miroku both relaxing their stances ever so slightly.

"Um...hello. My name's Inuyasha. Can I help you?" he greeted lamely, going out of his way to seem as nonthreatening as possible. These people weren't construction workers in his home that he could jump out and spook, they were trained youkai killers and he knew he had to tread carefully.

"My name is Miroku, and this is Sango," the houshi replied in introduction, gesturing with his shakujo towards the silent Sango who had slung Hiraikotsu on her back but was resting her right hand on the hilt of her sword, just in case.

Inuyasha swallowed.

"You can help us by explaining your presence in this part of the forest, so close to a human neighborhood," the monk quickly added.

Inuyasha tried to feign innocence.

"Oh...did I really wander so close to town? My mistake. I'll just be on my-"

"Don't move," Sango interrupted before Inuyasha could turn to make another run for it.

The sudden buzzing of a cellphone on vibrate, a sound still much too loud in the eerie stillness of the forest in that moment, had Inuyasha cringing, his ears flattening against his head, as Sango and Miroku's eyes both widened to realize the being they correctly deduced to be the hanyou offspring of a daiyoukai had a _phone_.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Miroku asked with a bit of a smirk after a moment, noticing the hanyou's worried expression. The monk thought that perhaps this being was part of a group of youkai who'd somehow infiltrated the human world.

There was always the possibility of youkai living amongst humans, after all, especially when it came to shape-shifters like kitsune and tanuki, but the official unofficial position by the Spiritual Forces was that if the youkai didn't cause any harm and were just trying to live their lives it was a don't ask, don't tell situation. They tried their best to prevent the infiltration of youkai into town at the forest borders, but they weren't about to start going around routinely subjecting everyone to reiki tests to ensure they were fully human. It wasn't about maintaining human/youkai segregation, it was about maintaining _peace_.

At the same time, youkai had no human rights, seeing as they were not human. If a kitsune living as a human _were_ discovered it would be captured and returned to the forest more or less no differently than they'd just done with that bear. But in their experience, no kitsune actually wanted to just live a normal human life, anyway. Rather, the whole thing was just a giant game to them, to see how long they could get away with 'fooling' the humans. It was no skin off their nose to get found out, their illusions destroyed. A being such as the creature before them, on the other hand, was a mystery to Miroku and Sango. He could possibly be in league with some shape-shifting youkai, but there was no way he himself could pass as human, even if human blood _did_ flow through his veins.

"Answer it," Sango snapped then, when the phone, which had gone quiet, started ringing a second time.

Reluctantly, resigned to his fate, Inuyasha reached into the side slit of his hakama and into the pocket of the shorts he had on underneath, retrieving his phone.

"Put it on speaker phone," Miroku said when Inuyasha opened it and was about to push the button.

The hanyou nodded, then engaged the call.

"Hey," he said, not wanting to say Kagome's name since he knew these people knew her. The last thing he wanted to do was get Kagome into any trouble for harboring him. "I've got a situ-"

"Inuyasha, thank the kami!" Kagome interrupted before Inuyasha could finish. "When I got home and saw your note I was nervous, and then when you didn't answer I was worried sick! I don't know why you went out but you need to be careful. Don't go too far out into the forest right now because they took the kuma-youkai-"

"I know," he interrupted this time, before she could say anything else, although Sango and Miroku's eyes were already both the size of saucers. "I uh...I've bumped into a couple of them," Inuyasha elaborated.

Kagome's voice instantly went from relieved to nervous. "What...what do you mean?"

"He means Sango and I have come across him while out in the forest, Kagome," Miroku spoke up as he approached Inuyasha's position in order to be close enough to speak into the phone Inuyasha was holding out in his hand, still in speaker phone mode.

Realizing upon Miroku's confirmation that she was right, that _was_ Kagome's voice on the other end of the line, Sango allowed herself to relax fully, removing her hand from her sword as she rolled her neck and shoulders to get out some of the tension from being ready for battle. Upon seeing her mistress fully relax, Kirara transformed back into her kitten form and hopped back up into Sango's arms, the taijiya catching her with practiced ease.

"Miroku?!" Kagome squeaked.

Miroku didn't know what was going on, but one thing he did know was that both Kagome and this 'Inuyasha' fellow were presently terrified, and he hated knowing he was the cause.

"You can relax, Kagome. Sango and I mean your friend here no harm."

Inuyasha relaxed himself at those words, and at seeing the taijiya holding the small nekomata in her arms, meaning neither one of them were immediately ready for battle.

"I think...it would be best if you and Sango came over. We all...need to talk."

Inuyasha nodded as if Kagome could see him before rolling his eyes at himself and telling her, "We're on our way now," before hanging up. He then met Miroku and Sango's eyes before saying "Well, come on, I'll lead you there. If you stab me in the back while I'm not looking you'll have a pissed off Kagome to deal with." He was only half joking, because he only half trusted them, but what he'd said was true. They _would_ have a pissed off Kagome to deal with if they attacked him now, and he was sure they realized it, also.

Besides, unless Sango aimed for his head, his fire-rat robes would protect him from the majority of a blow from either her sword or that giant bone boomerang of hers. How the hell could she even lift that thing, anyway?!

Inuyasha led them back to the house via his original path of escape. He'd figured he might as well stop to pick up the log super quick, and when he did he explained that that was the blast of youki they'd sensed from him. He had cut a fallen tree into pieces to take this part of the log back home with him because he wanted to try his hand at woodworking. He decided to be completely honest with them because why lie? And no lie he could come up with would be better than the truth in this situation, anyway. With any luck, they would take pity on him and his situation, and not punish Kagome for having shown him the same.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

.

As Inuyasha led the monk and slayer back to his home his feeling of dread, not for himself, but for Kagome, continued to grow. It wasn't necessarily _illegal_ to harbor a youkai, or at least a non-dangerous one, so he knew there shouldn't be any serious repercussions, but she still might be dismissed from the Spiritual Forces if they deemed her unworthy of the position and he'd hate to be the cause of something like that because he knew how much it meant to her. He could only hope they'd be willing to look the other way because they didn't want to lose her. The fact that she'd _just_ impressed them with the way she'd dealt with the kuma had him mentally crossing his fingers that that would be the case.

He knew society considered someone like him not much more than a talking dog, with no human rights to speak of even though he'd been born from a human woman and occasionally turned human himself, but as a talking dog he'd pledge his loyalty to Kagome and by extent all of mankind, making sure Sango and Miroku knew he meant nobody any harm. They obviously understood that not all youkai were evil, considering the female taijiya's nekomata companion. He'd already known the taijiya utilized trained youkai animals because just like the expression fight fire with fire, sometimes it was best to fight youkai with youkai. Of course, they always used _lower_ youkai _animals_ for such tasks, which were akin to police dogs and had been trained for that purpose since they were puppies – or in the case of the nekomata, kittens – but if they started in on Kagome about secretly 'having' an inu-hanyou he'd point out the existence of trained youkai like that nekomata and hopefully get them to see the hypocrisy.

He wasn't about to stupidly suggest that all humans and youkai could coexist peacefully. If it weren't for the abundance of reiki users in human society most daiyoukai would have probably tried to wipe humans out by now, seeing them as lesser beings unworthy of existence. He knew first hand that was how a lot of them felt because shortly after his mother's death, when he'd spent a lot of his days out in the forest, only returning to his home at night, he'd bumped into a few higher youkai that lived in secret places deep in the forest that the humans could not access, and they had looked down on _him_ for being even _half_ human, regardless of the strength of his youki. Some of them had even tried to _kill_ him, and he'd been very thankful his mother had insisted during his youth that he learn how to conjure up and use his natural born youki-based attacks. He didn't have good battle skills, but he had daiyoukai blood flowing through his veins and his attacks packed quite the wallop...as evidenced by the way Sango and Miroku had freaked out when they'd felt him cut through that stupid tree.

So no, he was in no way, shape or form an advocate for peaceful human/youkai relations. _He_ just wanted to be able to live in peace with Kagome. He considered himself a person, even though society didn't, but even if he had to play the part of a second pet dog of hers he'd do whatever it took to protect Kagome's job and reputation.

Speaking of the miko he'd grown to care so much about, as the three of them emerged through the trees into his and Kagome's backyard the miko was standing there waiting to greet them, still dressed in her miko robes, an unmistakably nervous expression on her face. Sighing, and tossing the log off to the side, Inuyasha then gestured between her and the people who'd followed him home.

"So you guys already know each other," he said with a nod, in lieu of actually introducing them to each other.

"I've known Miroku for a few years, actually," Kagome said with a nod of her own head in Miroku's direction that the monk returned, "but I just met his wife Sango today while on assignment."

She then met the slayer's eyes and said, "Please, come in," before turning and heading back inside via the kitchen door, her housemate and guests all coming in behind her. "Coffee? Tea?"

"Kagome..." Miroku stressed.

"Can't blame a girl for trying to be a good hostess," she replied with a shrug before heading into the living room and having a seat on the wing chair beside the sofa, after shooing Shiro off of it, allowing her guests to sit together on the larger piece of furniture while Inuyasha took it upon himself to stand protectively beside Kagome, arms crossed, while Shiro sat down at her feet. The dog barked once when Sango and Miroku had a seat on the sofa, barking at Kirara who curled up in the slayer's lap, but a very quiet woof from Inuyasha had Shiro settling down.

"I suppose I should start at the beginning," the miko started, quickly amending with, "or, that is, the beginning for me."

She gestured around to the living room they were sitting in, which still had the original near century old furniture and only very few modern touches, like the TV above the fireplace, that betrayed what century they were actually living in.

"In case it has not occurred to you just which house you're in, as I know there are multiple cul-de-sacs that butt up against the western treeline like a strip of zipper teeth, we are in the old Takahashi place."

Both Miroku and Sango looked surprised at that bit of information, as Kagome had suspected they would, their eyes widening dramatically. Her house had earned itself quite the reputation over the years, after all.

Miroku was the first to speak.

"Your family had told me of your good fortune, that you had won some money and as a result had been able to both quit your job and buy yourself the home you'd wanted since you were little, but nothing they'd said had implied..."

"That I'd bought the local haunted house?" Kagome finished for him with an amused smirk when he'd let his words trail off.

"I remember my father telling me of this house a few years ago," he said then, with a growing smirk of his own. "He had assured me the legends were false, because a decade prior he had been hired by the then new owners to purify the establishment, himself, and he'd told me that while it had not felt as if a ghost were present in the first place he had nonetheless purified the entire property." Glancing at Inuyasha he added, "If this story is going where I think it's going, then it looks like my father was right. This house was never truly haunted."

"No it was not," Kagome agreed with a nod before briefly smiling up at the hanyou standing to her right.

She told them the rest of the story, then, Inuyasha choosing to remain silent for now, figuring it'd look better for him if he just let the humans talk. Kagome told them of how when she'd first bought the place little things had started to happen to her, too, that had made the house appear haunted, although being a miko she had known it wasn't a ghost. She explained how she'd thought he was perhaps a kitsune playing jokes on her, and everyone who'd come before her, and how she'd been bound and determined to get to the bottom of it, leading to the moment she'd discovered Inuyasha in the attic. She then proceeded to explain to Sango and Miroku what Inuyasha had told her at that time, how he'd been born in that house, how the original owner, Izayoi Takahashi, was his mother, and how all he'd wanted to do was chase away new owners so that he could continue living in the only home he'd ever known.

"I figured I didn't really have the right to kick him out, morally, anyway," Kagome explained, pleading with her eyes for them to both understand her reasoning. "Inuyasha's not some wild animal, regardless of what the law books say. But even if he were, wild animals that have been raised by humans their whole lives can't always just suddenly be set loose in the wild, either. Sometimes they're kept in zoos or shelters where we continue to take care of them because they wouldn't be able to survive on their own in the wild. And Inuyasha's youkai half isn't even some beast typically known for being hostile towards humans, anyway. He's an inu-hanyou, and everyone knows most inu-youkai are friendly, at least towards whomever has their loyalty."

She glanced up at Inuyasha, then, and he could read it in her eyes that she wanted him to speak up now. He straightened his back and uncrossed his arms before looking Miroku and Sango both in the eyes.

"I am loyal to Kagome," he said without hesitation.

As if he knew what was going on, Shiro chose that moment to let out one single bark, as well, as he too perked up a bit and looked at the slayer and monk. With Shiro being a white akita mix, it really gave the impression that he and Inuyasha were Kagome's two loyal guard dogs.

Listening to Kagome explain everything, followed by Inuyasha's statement when the miko signaled it was his turn to speak, Sango got the distinct impression that while they were being completely honest, they were also reciting a script. She sincerely doubted the hanyou was usually so formal or submissive, and it wouldn't surprise her in the slightest if the two of them had come up with a contingency plan in the event of Inuyasha's presence ever being discovered.

Smiling a soft, reassuring smile, the slayer met Kagome's eyes and said, "I knew I liked you the minute you didn't automatically purify that kuma without trying to subdue it first."

At Sango and Miroku's friendly smiles, Kagome relaxed tremendously, and seeing Kagome relax had Inuyasha relax a little bit as well although he wasn't ready to fully lower his guard just yet. Then Kagome spoke back up with, "I know some miko are like that, and that's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to register as a warrior miko, besides feeling obligated to use the powers the kami had given me to help save human lives whenever possible. I wanted to use my powers for _good_ , and maybe save a few _youkai_ lives while I'm at it."

"We used to occasionally require the aid of a miko who lives in the city, whenever the problem was large enough that protocol dictated I could not attempt it on my own and calling in the nearest registered miko was mandatory," Miroku explained then. "Such instances were few and far between, and when it was required of her she always acted with the strictest professionalism, but perhaps that was part of the problem."

"She's not one of those dark miko who get off on slaughtering as many youkai as possible," Sango elaborated, explaining, "she was perfectly content to allow youkai their space in the forest and never spouted nonsense about how all youkai should be dealt with once and for all, but at the same time, she had no sympathy, or even empathy, for them."

Curling her right hand into a fist and lightly punching it into her left hand, her eyes narrowing, Sango added, "She told me I had no business having Kirara. Actually had the audacity to suggest I let her fashion me a set of subjugation beads for her to wear because, according to Kikyou, youkai are wild animals that cannot be trusted and it's only a matter of time before Kirara turns on me."

The nekomata curled up in her lap cracked her eyes open at Sango's rant, tilted her head to glance up at her mistress, and mewed in a way that clearly indicated what _she_ thought of Kikyou's suggestion, before closing her eyes and settling back down.

Putting an arm around his wife's shoulders for moral support, Miroku met Kagome's eyes and added, "The last time we had to deal with her, she was called in to help us with a massive snake-youkai that'd apparently escaped from someone who'd secretly had it in captivity. I suspect today's situation with the bear-youkai will turn out to be similar once the investigation is complete, but at any rate, this snake was about as big around as a Kirara's torso in her battle form and as long as three city buses."

"I remember that," Kagome acknowledged with a nod.

That incident had happened back when she was seventeen, a year before she'd moved out of the shrine, and she'd actually wanted to go help before her mother had explained that as a civilian, and an underage teenager to boot, they would not have let her assist them. There was a time and a place for citizens to volunteer and be heroes in such dire situations, but if Kagome had gone charging in there without permission it would have split their resources, as some of the people trying to combat the snake would have needed to be diverted in an effort to protect _her._

"The miko...Kikyou is her name?...showed up and just up and purified the snake," Kagome recalled. "The news called her a hero, but I always felt sorry for the snake. It seemed to me like it'd just been lost and scared and trying to find its way to the wild."

"Us too," Miroku acknowledged. "We'd been attempting to subdue it when she'd arrived on the scene, took one look at it thrashing all about, took out an arrow, and shot it."

"I was worried you might have handled the kuma the same way," Sango admitted.

"Keh, you definitely don't gotta worry 'bout that with Kagome," Inuyasha chimed in then, crossing his arms again but in a more relaxed posture, and Sango's smile widened.

"I know that now," the taijiya said, "and I just want to go ahead and assure you both that _you_ have nothing to worry about, either."

Glancing Miroku's way, he smiled and nodded at his wife, so she nodded back and then met Kagome and Inuyasha's eyes again.

"While _technically_ , Kagome, you should be guilty of owning an unlicensed youkai, just like the guy who'd owned that snake, Miroku and I don't believe it's fair that the law regards hanyou in the same light as youkai such as my nekomata Kirara. But speaking of Kirara, it _is_ legal to own certain species of youkai if they're registered, and as you've already pointed out, Inuyasha's youkai half does not come from an inherently violent species that, in that case, would be illegal to own under any circumstance, if his species were on the banned list."

Not wanting to continue to talk about Inuyasha as if he _were_ merely an animal, especially since he was right there in the room with them, she then addressed the hanyou directly as the person she honestly did know he really was, regardless of what the law said.

"So I have a suggestion, Inuyasha, that if you're willing, would be the perfect solution for your situation."

Intrigued, and only mildly suspicious, he asked, "Oh yeah? What?"

"Kagome could register you as her official service youkai, just as I have Kirara. And for the record, I know Kirara is a lot more intelligent than a mortal cat." Kirara opened her eyes again and meowed a couple of times at that, which earned a chuckle from everyone in the room. "While as far as the Spiritual Forces is concerned, I'm here handler," Sango added as she glanced down at the neko in her lap with a fond smile, "I think of her as my partner in battle. She's not kept in any sort of cage, she lives with me freely as my pet cat, and she usually stays in her kitten form when we're not fighting a youkai, but she's with me of her own free will. She was bred for the job, trained for it, but there's no spell binding her to me, no tracking chip under her skin. She could run away, fly off to live freely in the woods, and nobody could or _would_ stop her. She likes her life, and so I can completely understand why _you_ also like _your_ life and don't want to give it up."

Meeting Inuyasha's eyes again as she said that last part, the hanyou nodded at her, his expression relaxed and thoughtful. One whiff of her scent had told him she was being completely sincere. Sango continued then.

"As Kagome's service youkai you would no longer need to stay a secret, with the fear that someone like us..." she gestured between herself and her husband, "...would try to 'exorcize' you from the house if they discovered your presence."

"The Spiritual Forces would know you're here," Miroku elaborated, "and Kagome would be allowed to have you. The only thing is..."

"You would be expected to accompany her on any future calls and assist us in the battle," Sango concluded.

What she and Miroku were worried might be a deal breaker for the hanyou they honestly knew nothing about – aside from the fact that he'd lived a pampered, sheltered life before then being reduced to playing ghost to save his home – actually had Inuyasha's eyes widening in surprised delight before he replied with an eager, "Really? I'd be allowed to help her fight youkai?"

Glancing at Kagome for a moment, the look in his eyes as they smiled at each other causing Sango and Miroku to both silently wonder just how close the two of them really were – although they knew it was none of their business – Inuyasha then turned back their way and said, "I'll need proper training, but I want to learn."

Chuckling a little, he added, "I already know how to control my youki, as you're well aware." Sango and Miroku both chuckled as well at that. "The one thing that bothered me about Kagome doing this miko gig is that she's putting herself in danger and I wasn't allowed to protect her, even though I know she's tough and can take care of herself. I'm inu, and I'm loyal to Kagome like I said. I can't help it. That wasn't just a line, it's the truth. Which means my instincts want to protect her, and if there's a way I'd actually be allowed to come along, to be by her side and fight with her, I want to do it. That doing this will also protect _me,_ in that we don't have to keep my being here a secret any longer...how can I say no?"

He looked at Kagome again. "I don't care if the world sees me as your inugami, or even your pet. If we do this the world can _see_ me, and that's all that matters."

"I wouldn't report you to my father," Sango reassured them both then. "If you decided not to do this, Miroku and I would keep your secret." The monk nodded his agreement. "But it would still _be_ a secret, one that might still be discovered one day, and as you've pointed out, Inuyasha, if you don't do this then you're not allowed to protect Kagome in battle."

"I never even considered this option, but you make such a wonderful point," Kagome finally spoke up then. She glanced up at Inuyasha, who grinned again and nodded when he looked her way.

She then met Sango's eyes again and eagerly asked, "So how do I register him?"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Inuyasha was a nervous wreck going into to city to their county's local Spiritual Forces headquarters with Kagome the following day, but when she'd gone in herself to register him a little over an hour ago, and on the form for what species he was she'd put inu-hanyou, she'd been told Inuyasha had to pass 'inspection' before the application would be approved. At first the inspector had said they could make an appointment for him to come to their house in a few days, but Kagome had wanted to get Inuyasha registered as soon as possible, so that's when the inspector had suggested just bringing the hanyou in, instead.

Agreeing, Kagome had gone straight home, told Inuyasha what both the registration office and the inspector had said, and feeling the same sense of urgency as Kagome he had, albeit reluctantly, agreed to go with her into the city. Inuyasha wished he could have enjoyed his first ever car ride as a hanyou, his first ever time out in the human world as a hanyou, in broad daylight, but given the reason for this excursion into the city he just couldn't relax, and Kagome couldn't say she blamed him.

It made sense that the inspector would want to meet him first. Even though the law books considered hanyou the same as youkai, and all youkai – including the humanoid ones, even elementals – were considered just barely above animals, everyone understood that in real life hanyou were mentally equal to humans. So under the guise of a 'physical inspection' he probably actually wanted to assess whether or not Inuyasha could be trusted, although with Sango and Miroku both already vouching for him the inspector was probably more curious than wary.

Inuyasha would be the first hanyou ever registered with them, after all, and while there were no provisions in the rules that excluded hanyou, or even daiyoukai for that matter, so they had no basis for rejecting him, most people had never met a hanyou, and so the inspector probably just wanted this opportunity to see one in person.

Arriving at the tall, multi-story building, Inuyasha was relieved he felt no purifying barriers surrounding the place like holy shrine grounds. That made sense, he belatedly realized, because service youkai had to be capable of entering the building if need be, after all. With Kagome dressed in her full miko regalia, he in his demonic fire-rat robes, they got out of her car and, with Inuyasha trying his best to walk behind her with confidence, his head held high despite feeling like he just wanted to curl up into a ball and hide, they headed purposefully into the building as if they belonged there...because they did.

Several people milling about stopped and stared at Inuyasha as he and the miko walked through the main lobby to the elevators, but nobody was giving them any disapproving looks. They were just surprised and curious. It was clear the hanyou was there with Kagome, after all, so nobody freaked out.

Heading up to the floor where the youkai inspector's office was, Kagome led the way down the hall and to the correct door before knocking.

"Come in," Akio said, looking up at his door eagerly because although he had no spiritual senses it was just a little over an hour since that miko had said she'd bring her inu-hanyou in for inspection.

When the door opened he was not disappointed.

The miko entered first, followed by the most magnificent specimen he'd ever seen.

"Come in, come in! Please, have a seat...both of you," he said, belatedly adding that last part, as he gestured to the two chairs on the other side of his desk.

With Kagome and Inuyasha both having a seat across from the inspector, the 'interview' was short and to the point. The inspector, Akio, surprised Inuyasha by speaking to him directly, introducing himself before he began asking him questions, and he encouraged Inuyasha to ask him questions in return. Kagome had been right, he'd simply wanted to meet the hanyou, but it _was_ to make sure that his loyalties were squarely where they should be. Inuyasha was surprised and impressed, though, that the inspector spoke to him so respectfully, and readily acknowledged his intelligence.

"While you're a different species from us, and I understand why hanyou are considered youkai despite being half human, there are _many_ species of youkai with the mental capacity of a human, some even possessing the ability to create perfect human disguises. Thinking of them as unintelligent animals would make _us_ the unintelligent ones," he said with a laugh. "But tricksters such as kitsune and tanuki have no true love for humans, most daiyoukai even less so, and we would be leery of letting one join our ranks, although no there's no rule against it. You, though," Akio explained, "have true grounds for feeling loyalty towards mankind, and I feel I have no reason to mistrust you when you've already earned the respect of a powerful miko, not to mention one of our tajiya _and_ one of our houshi also vouching for you and Miss Higurashi."

"After being raised by my human mother, brought up in secret like a human child and living with her her whole life until she died of old age, and then being rejected and even attacked by various youkai in the forest when I tried to join who I _thought_ were 'my people' after her death, my loyalty is definitely towards mankind," Inuyasha explained. He purposefully kept the details vague – not everyone needed to know about the whole Kagome buying the 'old Takahashi place' thing, after all – but feeling like he needed to say more he added, "When I first met Kagome, she spoke to me like I was a person. She even offered me food when she realized I was hungry, and I...well I've just gotten to know her, and you're right, we are a different species. I _am_ inu, and that side of me, my inu-youkai side, it's loyal to Kagome. I'm _hers_. She's tamed a stray and now, I want nothing more than to be hers _legally_ , so that I can protect her in battle the way my inu-youkai instincts long to do."

Akio nodded, before smirking.

"You and I both know you're more than just a talking dog, but yes, as far as society is concerned that's what you are," he said.

Inuyasha actually shrugged.

"I'm only really human during my monthly transformations. The rest of the time I _do_ have inu instincts and it would be stupid to ignore or deny that."

"And you only transform once a month, is that correct?" Akio asked then.

Inuyasha knew they'd obviously need to know this information. He couldn't be expected to show up to the rescue when he was human, after all. So nodding, Inuyasha told Akio that his human nights were the night of the new moon.

"Your daiyoukai father had to have been _very_ powerful," Akio observed, then, since the more powerful the youki flowing through a hanyou, the less often they turned human.

"I've never met him, but apparently, yes he was," Inuyasha said.

"And if your father should suddenly show up, or other members of your inu side of the family? Would that have an effect on your loyalty?"

Inuyasha squared his shoulders.

"They know where I am. They've _never_ tried to contact me. Even if someone from my youkai side of the family were the _attacking_ youkai Kagome and I were called in to fight, that wouldn't affect my loyalty."

Akio was surprised by the amount of sincerity in the hanyou's voice, and the animosity he seemed to feel for his youkai family. Not that he supposed he could blame him, when he thought about it, since they'd obviously abandoned him. He noted that Kagome seemed unsurprised by Inuyasha's remarks.

Akio addressed Kagome, then.

"Kagome," he began, because during her earlier visit she'd already told Akio to just call her Kagome, which was why they were on a first name basis with him as well. "I release Inuyasha into your care. Permission to register him as yours is granted." Hanyou and miko both mentally sighed in relief at his words. "He's passed my inspection and I'll give you the paperwork registration needs to add him to your file. He is _your_ responsibility, and should he cause any harm or destruction you will be held liable, not that I get the impression you have anything to worry about." Akio smiled as he said it.

"I would never do anything wrong, sir," Inuyasha chimed in without hesitation, the look in his eyes sincere. "I want only to be able to legally accompany Kagome on the hopefully rare times her services as a warrior miko are required, so that I can protect her, and everyone else, doing my part to defend our hometown from rogue youkai who wish humans harm."

"That's what we like to hear," Akio said. "Well, or at least it would be, if any of our other registered service youkai could talk," he added with a bit of an awkward laugh, before offering his hand across the desk for Inuyasha to shake. Surprised, and a bit hesitant, Inuyasha discreetly scented the man and could detect his sincerity. He shook his hand.

"Welcome to the Spiritual Forces."

Leaving Akio's office with paperwork showing Inuyasha had cleared inspection, Kagome, with 'her' hanyou in tow, made a trip back down to the registration office. Again they got looks from everyone as they passed, but again nobody seemed afraid of Inuyasha because they knew he was obviously there with the miko. The registration clerk had no issue with his presence as he sat quietly in one of the chairs in the small waiting area while Kagome went up to the desk, and this time they approved her registration of him, filing the proper forms and printing Kagome out a small card she was told to keep handy because it was her immediate proof that he was registered should anyone ask while they were out and about.

With all _that_ taken care of, Kagome asked Inuyasha if he'd like to do anything else while they were out in the city, but the whole being a legally registered youkai was going to take a bit getting used to so he just asked her to take him home. He conceded to her swinging through a fast food place for lunch, though. Looking out the rolled up window – because the scents of the city were a bit overwhelming – he couldn't help feeling self-conscious from all the people who stared at him in surprise if they noticed him sitting in the passenger seat, but knowing that Kagome couldn't get in trouble for having him with her was a huge load off his mind. Let them stare, he supposed. They weren't doing anything wrong.

"Halloween will be here before we know it," Kagome spoke up suddenly, while they were still waiting in line at the drive through.

With his ears automatically swiveling in her direction, the rest of his head following suit as he turned to look at her, he wasn't quite sure if he should be excited by, or afraid of, the smile she was giving him.

"And…?"

"And let's just say, I'd already been toying around with an idea that I'd been afraid was probably a very _bad_ idea, and so I probably wouldn't have wanted to risk actually going through with it before, but now...now that you're legal, and I'm _allowed_ to take you out into public with me, I think it's a _fabulous_ idea."

Inuyasha still wasn't sure if he should be excited or afraid.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

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"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Inuyasha asked as he watched Kagome fiddle with her wig.

"That depends on what you mean by good idea," Kagome giggled as she put the last pin in place. "Only other reiki users will be able to sense what you are, but they'll also be able to sense what _I_ am, and I have your card in my wallet, just in case." She patted her right hip.

Taking a page from Inuyasha's playbook, she was wearing a thin pair of shorts under her traditional hakama so that she had pockets, because a purse would _not_ go with this outfit.

Giving herself a once over in the mirror, she nodded to herself at a job well done. For someone who'd never really learned how to sew, the facsimile of Inuyasha's archaic suikan jacket looked pretty good if she did say so herself. It was made from woven cotton fabric she'd found in the right shade of red rather than the fur of the fire-rat, as fire-rats were bred for their wool by _daiyoukai,_ not humans, and with Inuyasha being unwelcome in the youkai world there was no way she could have gotten her hands on the demonic fabric, but that was all right. She probably wouldn't have been been able to cut or sew it, anyway, or at least not without charging her scissors and sewing needle with reiki. It was a thought to ponder another day, as she turned this way and that in the mirror. The replica suikan was a pretty close color match to her miko hakama, so she hadn't bothered attempting to make herself a pair of hakama in Inuyasha's specific style. Hers were more modern, and miko garb, but it was a minute distinction the average person probably wouldn't notice, or at least care about. Lots of people hobbled together costumes from whatever they could, after all.

"As far as all the regular humans of the city will be concerned, you and me are _both_ just fellow humans dressed up as inu-hanyou for Halloween," Kagome said then, play tweaking one of her own fake canine ear.

"Except _my_ ears _move,_ " Inuyasha pointed out, as he deliberately turned his ears back and forth for emphasis.

"Just...try not to move them _too_ much," Kagome said, offering him a small smile as she shrugged. "Most people will probably be too drunk to notice and like I said, I have your card, just in case. Worst that could happen is we're asked to leave. It's not like I'm actually breaking any laws by having you with me. I could claim we're actually working, just in case _other_ youkai thought to infiltrate the city during everyone's Halloween celebrations. We're there to keep the public safe."

Inuyasha snorted, but didn't argue. It was a good cover story, especially since if any random youkai actually _did_ decide to start some trouble he and Kagome would indeed take care of it. And higher youkai could suppress their youki to a point, which probably meant that Kagome wouldn't be able to sense a troublesome youkai in the city until they were relatively close by. He, on the other hand, would be able to _smell_ the evidence of another youkai, even if they'd passed by that way hours earlier. He might be at the mercy of the direction of the wind when it came to detecting scents on the breeze, but a scent on the _ground_ was a different story, and so logically the more ground they covered while out tonight, walking up and down the streets, heading from bar to bar and club to club, the better. If they got caught, she could claim she was having him scent all the streets to make sure the area was free of other youkai.

Adding the finishing touches to her costume Kagome put in her yellow contact lenses, pocketing their container, before then also applying a set of acrylic fangs over her eye teeth and then putting on white claw press-on nails over her real nails. The result was she was a pretty convincing second inu-hanyou, her wig covering her real ears while it had white dog ears sprouting from the top of it that aside from being immobile looked pretty close to the real thing.

Kagome grabbed a handful of sealing ofuda, then, and tucked them into her left pocket, just in case, before the two of them headed downstairs and slipped their bare feet into matching pairs of traditional zori sandals. Heading out the door, Inuyasha found himself sincerely hoping they had a trouble-free night. Having grown up knowing what Halloween was, and having missed out on the childhood experience of Trick or Treating, he was looking forward to enjoying the _adult_ experience of a street party.

Hell, he'd always look forward to _anything_ that involved an activity shared with Kagome, but getting to do it as himself, without his overwhelming human emotions, meant he could hopefully enjoy their night together without those pesky fleeting moments of longing and depression getting in the way. It was what it was, and tonight was Halloween, which as Kagome had explained meant that for tonight, at least, he could walk around town in all his hanyou glory with everyone none the wiser, and he damn well planned on enjoying it.

Heading out front, though, he still couldn't help glancing around nervously from house to house, as if someone where going to see him and realize what he was, which was silly considering he'd already gone into the city with Kagome once before as a hanyou, and in broad daylight no less. Of course, none of their neighbors had been home then, the adults all at work and the kids at school. Now, though, while the neighbors were all home, and there were actually already kids in the street giddily going from door to door, nobody was paying them any attention as the 'two hanyou' got into Kagome's car and slowly pulled away.

"Wow, okay, so here we go. My second time out into the world as my hanyou self, but my _first_ time just hanging out with other people, as if I'm human," he said excitedly.

He'd never even gone out while he really _was_ human until Kagome had entered his life, and now, in just a year, here she had him in his hanyou form, sitting in her car, an approximate half hour drive ahead of them because the Halloween celebrations in their little border town were – according to Kagome – nowhere near as marvelous as the massive street party they threw in the city, on a closed off strip of road where all the best bars and nightclubs were located.

Would his demonic senses be overwhelmed in that environment, from too many sounds and smells? Probably. But it was nevertheless an experience he was looking forward to, and in preparation he'd watched videos people had posted online from previous years so he could at least more or less know what to expect. Hoards of drunk humans dressed either as ghosts and youkai, anime characters, or totally random albeit funny and innovative creations. Someone in the background in one of the videos had been dressed as a piece of sushi.

He snickered at the memory. Then, as he watched the buildings zip by as Kagome drove down the road, a random idea that popped into his head had him laughing even louder.

Grinning herself at the sound of his merriment, Kagome glanced Inuyasha's way and asked him, "What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing," he said, as he pushed the button that rolled his window down. "A part of me's just always wanted to do this, and I suddenly realized I could."

That said, he stuck his head out the window, his mouth open and tongue hanging out as he got blasted in the face by the wind. It was Kagome's turn to bust up laughing.

A little over twenty minutes later, Inuyasha knew they were close when he started to notice cars parked on the sides of the streets everywhere, and then he started to notice costumed humans, _adult_ humans instead of children, some by themselves, others in pairs or groups, all walking in the same direction. A mix of different loud club songs rang out in the air, decipherable to his demonic hearing, but he was sure once they actually arrived at their destination the nearest music would probably be loud enough to prevent him from hearing the other songs clearly.

"I guess we should have gotten here earlier," Kagome said, more talking to herself, as she drove them up and down a few side streets looking for a place to park.

Shrugging, Inuyasha said, "I can walk."

Nodding, Kagome turned down another road, and then instead of turning _again_ at the intersection to come back up again, she kept going, down three more blocks, until finally the sides of the road started to open up a bit with multiple places to parallel park. Finding a spot that was just as good as any other on that particular road, knowing that before long all the other free spots would also be filled, Kagome joked, "I guess if I'm too tired to walk back you'll just have to carry me," as she and Inuyasha got out of the car.

He blushed at her obvious teasing, but then, thinking he'd get her back, he said, "I can also carry you there, if you'd like."

It was her turn to blush, and Kagome knew she'd better not dare try calling his bluff because she wouldn't put it past him, embarrassed or no, to one up her once again by _not_ conceding defeat. Knowing Inuyasha, he'd actually swoop her up in his arms if she dared him to, smirking at her red cheeks even while conveniently ignoring his own. So instead of egging him on, the miko just laughed again and said "Maybe next year," before taking his hand and walking down the street with him towards the nightclubs.

Smiling one of his rare, genuine smiles, Inuyasha gave Kagome's hand a little squeeze back when he felt her squeeze his own, realizing as he walked down the street with her that yes, they _could_ do this again next year. And the year after that, and the year after that...

For right now, though, Inuyasha wanted to live in the now, and not worry about the future.

Arriving on the scene, the music was loud, the smells were overwhelming, and Inuyasha could not have wiped the fang flashing smile off his face if his life depended on it. Kagome grinned his way, her own fakefangs shining when the occasional moving party light hit them just right, and with nobody screaming and running away or even giving them nervous glances the hanyou and miko-dressed-as-a-hanyou both made their way passed the wooden barriers that closed off the main street to traffic, hoards of people milling about in the middle of the road with a giant stage built at the end of the block where a lot of people were gathered for what Kagome had told Inuyasha would be a costume contest held later on in the night for those who wished to participate.

They would obviously not be a part of the costume contest, of course, but tugging on his hand, Kagome excitedly rushed Inuyasha towards the bar-slash-nightclub that wouldn't start carding people at the door for another couple of hours. Inuyasha's aging had slowed tremendously once he'd reached adolescence, but he wasn't baby faced, and he could pass well enough for someone roughly around her same age, but with no ID they couldn't risk him getting carded. As if he wasn't old enough to drink. She snorted at the thought. The man was three years shy of a hundred. He certainly didn't act it, though, and Kagome had teased him repeatedly that she hoped she still looked half as good as him when she was his age. The truth was they were both lucidly aware of her mortality, but she was only twenty three and had her _whole_ life ahead of her still, so they'd more or less made a silent agreement not to dwell on it.

For the next several decades, at least, Inuyasha would not be alone. And in fact, Kagome realized as she went up to the bar to get their drinks while Inuyasha waited for her at the table they'd miraculously managed to nab, now that he was registered as 'her' hanyou with the Spiritual Forces that meant that he would be protected even after her death. After all, the youkai the taijiya used, such as nekomata like Kirara, would all outlive their original human handlers. Normally, Sango had explained, they were kept in the family, meaning her and Miroku's future children and grandchildren, and so on, would eventually be responsible for Kirara. So assuming she ever did eventually marry and have children, and at least one of those children was a reiki user who wanted to join the Spiritual Forces, Kagome knew Inuyasha would be taken care of that way, but if not, if she died without a family of her own, she was sure Inuyasha would still be taken care of by _somebody_. There would be Sango and Miroku's descendants, after all, or perhaps even her own future nieces and nephews as Souta would be continuing the Higurashi family line.

All that was a worry for another day, of course, and so as Kagome collected and paid for their first round of drinks she vowed to push such random thoughts to the back of her mind. Tonight was about having mindless fun. But she was glad she'd thought of it because she'd make sure to ask Sango about it later, and if there was any sort of a Will she could leave with the Spiritual Forces that dictated what was to become of Inuyasha. After all, what if she didn't have decades? What if she accidentally got killed on assignment?

Of course, with Inuyasha there by her side as her protector she didn't honestly fear _that_ outcome ever coming to pass. He would protect her with his life, he'd already told her so to her face, and so if she _did_ fall in battle it would only be because Inuyasha had already fallen, himself, in which case she wouldn't want to live without him, anyway.

 _Whoa...where did_ _that_ _thought come from?_

Schooling her features to flash Inuyasha a huge smile as she returned to their table with their drinks, she was grateful the overwhelming mix of smells meant he wouldn't be able to detect her momentary change in mood.

 _Get it together girl. Okay yes, you know you love him, but it doesn't matter. And sure, that probably means you'll never get married, but how could I marry anyone else when I love Inuyasha, anyway? That wouldn't be fair to anyone involved._

"Thanks," Inuyasha said as he accepted his vodka and cranberry from the miko who then took a sip of her own screwdriver.

Kagome had spent the last few days playing bartender at home so Inuyasha could decide what drinks he liked, or didn't like, so that on Halloween night she could order his drink in confidence and neither of them had to worry about it being something he couldn't handle. Unsurprisingly, it'd turned out he had a fairly high tolerance for alcohol, but also unsurprisingly he didn't like the taste and smell of a lot of the darker liquors.

"So now what do we do?" he asked her in practically a shout to be heard over the loud club music.

Kagome took another sip of her drink then said, "Now, we people watch! And after I'm drunk I'll want to dance with you so watch out," she added with a laugh and a wink.

He just laughed as well and took a sip of his own drink. The bar they were in was comprised of two large rooms, the main room they were currently in having a giant square shaped bar in the middle with standing-room-only tables lining the walls. There weren't any seats at the bar, either, he noticed, but figured it was because the place was so packed with people coming and going that sitting casually at the bar was not practical for the time being. The bartenders weren't even acknowledging anyone who walked up to the bar at some other random spot along its surface, as there were two long lines at the two wells on either side and the bartenders were both continually just helping the next person in line while the bar backs worked tirelessly to keep the ice stocked and to clear off the empty glasses from the people who had left. The room off to the side was the dance floor, and even for as many people that were in the main room with them, the dance floor seemed to house twice as many, everyone dressed in some kind of costume or another, most of them on the risqué side, as they danced together as one giant flowing mass of people moving in time to the music.

Glancing at Kagome as she took another sip of her drink, Inuyasha thought about the two of them joining the throngs of people dancing and felt a blush creeping up his cheeks at the mental image of a drunk Kagome throwing herself all over him, but hey, whatever she wanted to do, he was all for it.

 _That_ thought led to a _forbidden_ thought that had him blushing even darker. He could feel the heat in his cheeks and knew it wasn't from the alcohol, and he was grateful that Kagome didn't notice as she was indeed amusing herself by watching all of the other costumed people milling about.

The songs all blended together one into the next as the night wore on, literally, because the DJ up in the booth above the dance floor was awesome. The cotton balls Inuyasha had shoved down into his ears prior to leaving the house, both to help with the noise level and to help disguise the fact that his ears were real, only helped a little bit on either front, but he tried his best not to cringe against the loudness of the club music so that his ears wouldn't involuntarily flatten against his head. It helped that it was not unpleasant noise, like squeaking or grinding metal. He actually _liked_ the modern day dance music, and so as he downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp he tried to just allow the sound waves to wash over him in a loving embrace.

"Want another drink?" Kagome shout-asked over said music.

"Sure!" he enthusiastically agreed, handing her his empty glass.

Taking her drink with her as well, Kagome finished the last of her drink while waiting in line to buy their second round.

"Cute costumes!" the woman who came up behind her in line said after a moment.

When Kagome turned to look the other woman's way, the woman, who appeared like she might be dressed as some kind of cat or dog hanyou, herself, nodded her head in Inuyasha's direction, a huge smile on her face that showed off her own fake fangs.

"I think it's awesome that you got your boyfriend to go along with the whole matching costume thing," she complimented then.

"Thanks!" Kagome replied, easily playing along.

Eyeing the woman up and down, she took note of the orange-brown colored ears clipped to the top of her head, her hair brushed forward to hide her real ears, and a matching fluffy tail sticking out of the back of her dress. When the woman saw Kagome giving her outfit a once over she turned to the side to let the miko take it all in, even going so far as to wiggle her butt to make the tail swish back and forth.

"Cute!" Kagome said then, as realization dawned. "A kitsune, right?"

Of course, the woman wasn't a _real_ kitsune. There was no way Kagome wouldn't notice her aura from such close proximity, even with Inuyasha in the same room.

"Yup!" she answered with a smile.

"I couldn't talk him into adding a tail," Kagome ad-libbed then, while making sure to pay attention to the slowly shrinking line of people ahead of her, moving up when everyone else did.

"You look fine without one," the woman assured her with a wink.

"Thanks," Kagome answered again, and was thankfully spared needing to come up with any more smalltalk because right then it was her turn to order. After getting her drinks she said a polite "Have a good one," that received a "You too," from the woman in return, and then the miko-turned-hanyou made her way back to the _real_ hanyou who'd just unofficially passed his first test.

Most people probably weren't giving them a second thought, but this woman had obviously been admiring their 'costumes' from across the room, and she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary when it came to Inuyasha's appearance.

"So far so good," Kagome said as she got back to the table with their drinks and relayed her brief conversation.

A few minutes later, when Kagome was finished with her second drink, she decided to hold off on ordering a third for a little while to let them settle although she gladly got Inuyasha his third when he asked. Knowing how high his tolerance was, Kagome knew he'd go through way more drinks than she would by the end of the night, especially since she couldn't drink as much as she would if she weren't driving.

 _Although he 'did' offer to carry you to the car, and I bet if you asked nicely he'd carry you all the way home..._ she thought with a giggle that she couldn't keep on the inside as it bubbled to the surface, prompting Inuyasha to quirk his own lips in amusement as he asked her what was so funny.

"Oh nothing..." she waved off before chuckling again. "I definitely think I'm starting to feel those two drinks, though."

"Does that mean you want to dance now?" he asked with his own chuckle as he quickly downed the rest of his drink.

"You know what?" she said then. "Yes, yes I do. We can't just waste the night away sitting here, after all."

That said, she took Inuyasha's empty glass to the bar and then the two of them made their way into the adjacent room, where the club music seemed three times louder. A couple other people didn't hesitate to swoop in and claim their table in their absence, so with that avenue now securely closed behind them there was nowhere else to go but forward, onto the dance floor. The hanyou felt a little nervous at first, especially since if they were 'caught' dancing, with his miko being tipsy to boot, it wouldn't work well towards their excuse that they were just undercover in order to sniff out potentially troublesome youkai, but after glancing around the room and realizing with the crazy flashing, moving lights there was no way any of the way-drunker-than-Kagome humans were going to notice something odd, like his ears moving, Inuyasha decided to stop worrying about all the possible what-ifs and just let himself have a good time.

Kagome had certainly adopted that philosophy. The lightly buzzed miko didn't hesitate to grab Inuyasha's hand and drag him into the middle of the melee. The hanyou had never done this kind of dancing before, of course...or _any_ dancing, truth be told...but there had been plenty of examples on the Internet, not to mention the other people all around them in that moment. He was a fast learner and just _went_ for it, copying what he saw, Kagome's laughing, smiling face making his heart feel light even as the loud ass music vibrated in his brain.

As a particularly sexy song came on, with the perfect rhythm for pole dancing, Kagome had a split second to make a decision, and thanks to her liquid courage she decided to just go for it. Maybe this was the moment she'd been waiting for, to finally be brave enough to be honest about her feelings. Even though her outfit wasn't exactly sexy – the baggy suikan and hakama combo left _everything_ to the imagination – when she wrapped her arms around Inuyasha's waist and wove their legs together, mock-grinding against him to the rhythm, he flushed a deep scarlet as he went along with it. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but for the time being she'd just move to the music and worry about _facing_ the music later, after she sobered up.

Inuyasha actually had no complaints. She'd definitely caught him off guard, but he was enjoying every minute of this extra close proximity. He knew everyone would assume they were 'together' from the 'matching costumes' – and indeed, nobody was giving them odd looks – so he allowed himself this moment to hold Kagome close, the way he'd wanted to for months now.

It was excruciatingly intimate, rocking with her in time to the music. Her crotch wasn't actually touching his thigh, she was sober enough to know not to take things _too_ far into the realm of inappropriate, but he had one of his hands on her back, the other on her hip, and as he moved with her he couldn't help but let his mind travel in forbidden directions.

How he loved this woman. And she swore up and down that she saw him as a person, a man, not an animal, so was it too much to dream that she could possibly find him as attractive as he did her? That her feelings for him could go beyond mere friendship? She certainly didn't _have_ to dance with him so intimately, but then again, maybe to her it was no big deal? He wished the entire room didn't reek of a combination of booze, sweat and arousal so that he'd be able to tell if the last of those three smells was also present on the woman he was holding in his arms.

Of course, soon enough the song changed again, and Kagome detangled herself from him and continued dancing as if it was the most natural thing in the world and nothing even remotely awkward had just taken place between them. He again went along with the change and continued dancing with her, until she announced she was ready for a third drink and excused herself to get her third and his forth.

Not wanting to be alone on the dance floor, he wandered into the other room after her, and once she acquired their drinks they found a new out of the way place to stand while drinking them.

"Wanna get out of here after this?" Kagome asked him over the music. "There's lots more to see still."

"Sure," he agreed, finishing his vodka cran in a few big gulps, although he let her take her time with her screwdriver, sipping at it through two thin cocktail straws.

Casting his gaze around the room as he waited for her to finish her drink, Inuyasha couldn't help the renewed smile that climbed its way onto his face as he took in all the costumes. Some people were in scary or gross costumes, like decomposing zombies, while others were in sexy, alluring costumes, like the couple on the other end of the room where the man was a sexy vampire, shirtless but with the traditional cape and fangs, while she was in a short, low cut sleeping gown with the only bit of Halloween makeup being the bloody bite mark on her neck. There were tons of women dressed in sexed up versions of innocent outfits, like school girl uniforms, nurse and doctor uniforms, etc., and there were also tons of men in over the top, glamorous drag, which Inuyasha didn't have a problem with, because why should he? People were free to be themselves...so long as they were _people_...

Sighing, he shook it off and refused to let his lot in life sour his mood. He could be depressed again tomorrow. Tonight was for Kagome.

Oh sure, _she'd_ said the night was for _him_ , and indeed he _was_ having a good time, but the main reason he was enjoying himself was just from watching _her_ have so much fun. He'd never in a million years want to do anything like this by himself. It was all about Kagome. Wherever she wanted to lead him, he would follow her without question.

 _Heh, I guess I really am her loyal guard dog, after all..._

Even though he wished it could be more than that, he knew not to get his hopes up. Even if she did miraculously return his feelings she would probably not allow herself to be close to him in that way. Half human or not, he was a youkai, and she was a miko, and that gave the term 'forbidden love' a whole new meaning.

Snapping out of his rumination when Kagome grabbed his empty glass out of his band before taking both of their empty glasses back to the bar, he was all smiles again when she returned and eagerly followed her out of the club.

"Sorry if I was a little too forward in there," she said once they were back out on the street, already starting to feel nervous about it.

"Feh, no you weren't."

"I wasn't what?" she asked, trying to laugh but also secretly getting worried. "Too forward, or sorry?"

His eyes widened as he realized how what he'd said could easily be taken either way.

"I meant you weren't too forward!" he clarified immediately. "Did it look like I didn't enjoy it?" Even though he could feel heat climbing his face as he asked the question, he tried to keep the look in his eyes serious, wanting to get his point across.

Kagome blushed as well, and nervously raised her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear before belatedly remembering she was wearing a white wig that matched Inuyasha's wild locks, her real hair, and her ears, securely hidden underneath.

"I...had a good time, too," she said after a moment, meeting his eyes with a nervous smile.

He swallowed, and looked like he might be getting ready to say something serious, which Kagome had thought she wanted, but then suddenly getting hit with a feeling of panic she frantically changed the subject, instead.

"Well, come on!" she said then, a little _too_ enthusiastically, as she grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street towards another club.

Laughing it off, 'cause he realized Kagome was still a little tipsy, and honestly, he found this side of her totally adorable, Inuyasha went with her to the club down the street.

Unfortunately, when they got there, it turned out that this club was already carding people at the door. With that putting a stop to _those_ plans, Kagome led Inuyasha into the smaller bar next door. There were a lot fewer people in there, because the business held a lot fewer people, but the place was full and there was still a short line at the bar to order drinks.

Kagome just got a soda this time, done drinking for the night because she knew she needed to sober up for the drive home later, but she got Inuyasha another vodka cran because he hadn't come close to his limit yet and he'd asked her for another one. He had no intention of getting drunk off his ass, but a light buzz would definitely be nice. Maybe he'd even feel brave enough to tell Kagome how he felt. It'd certainly be better if he could do it while hanyou so that his heightened human emotions wouldn't muck everything all up.

In the meantime, he glanced around the room and again took in the costumes of everyone around him, a lot of the folks in this particular bar having gone the youkai route, which he found amusing. Lots of people either had animal ears on their heads, their human ears concealed by their hair (or wigs), or alternatively, pointed tips applied to their real ears for the elfin look of more powerful daiyoukai.

Most people dressed up as youkai also had colored contact lenses in, like Kagome's, but not necessarily golden yellow. There were also people with bright yellow-green eyes, or brilliant turquoise, and because of the nature of the holiday lots of people were also going the mid-transformation route, sporting red contact lenses and jagged facial stripes with extra large fake fangs in their mouths. Some of the makeups were so well done in fact that Inuyasha kept discreetly scenting the air to make doubly sure everyone was human.

They stayed in that bar long enough for Inuyasha to have a couple more drinks, Kagome sticking to soda and completely sober by that point, although she was still having a wonderful time. So was Inuyasha, who'd finally started to catch a light buzz.

"Thank you for dragging me out," he said over the music in the bar, which was still loud although thankfully nowhere near as loud as the music had been back on the dance floor in that other club. This also wasn't club music, but rock and roll, and while he liked it fine, the lower volume was _definitely_ appreciated.

"You were right when you said I'd enjoy it," he added then, nowhere near drunk enough to accidentally say anything aloud that he knew he shouldn't.

Like he'd hoped earlier, though, he was finally feeling brave enough to speak freely _to Kagome_ , strangely not bothered by the fact that they were surrounded by scores of people. Maybe he felt protected by their presence, because even though they meant he couldn't really speak _freely_ freely, neither could she so she couldn't tell him to his face that she couldn't be with him because he's a hanyou.

Not tonight, while she was _also_ a hanyou.

His lips quirked up in a half smile at the thought. She'd done that for him. This entire evening was for him. How could she feel nothing for him?

Not with the way she'd been dancing earlier...

"Kagome..." he started then, pausing to swallow when she flashed him a warm smile.

"You're welcome," she said in reply to his earlier comments.

He nodded, then plowed forward.

"I...you...that is, you don't know what something like this means to me," he began. "And you..."

Pausing again, he mentally braced for impact when her eyes widened a little bit.

"You don't know what _you_ mean to me."

There, he'd said it.

Well, sort of.

At least he'd said _something_. But the question now was, what would _she_ say?

Eyes wide in surprise, her shock did not last long. Kagome knew they had to be careful what they said in public, and could thankfully tell that Inuyasha still understood that as well, but she quickly decided that this moment was just as 'right' as any other, and after all, she'd originally hoped that her stunt on the dance floor could breach this subject before she'd then stupidly chickened out yet again. That _he_ now felt brave enough to voice his feelings aloud meant they could no longer do their silent dance, and her choice was either deny it or tell the truth.

She would not lie to him.

"I think I do," she said then, in regard to his claim that she did not know what she meant to him. "If it's even remotely similar to what you mean to me."

He sucked in a sharp breath, but before he could say anything more the miko-turned-hanyou continued.

"If we're on the same page here, then I figured we both kind of already knew how we felt but there's also been a silent agreement not to talk about it, and...and I'm glad you decided it was time to end that silence."

"I had hoped you felt something for me," he confessed then, "but I couldn't be sure. At least, not until earlier tonight."

She knew he was referring to the dance floor.

"Come on," she said then. "Let's get out of here."

Always paying cash for his drinks, Kagome had no tab to close out at the bar and immediately led him outside, the hanyou quickly placing the empty tumbler he'd been holding on the bar for the bartender to collect before following Kagome back out onto the street. The street was just as crowded, of course, loads of costumed people milling about, and the crowd was especially thick near the makeshift stage where the costume contest was now in full swing, the host's voice almost loud enough to overpower the mix of music from the various bars and clubs along the street as it blared from a massive set of speakers set at either side of the stage, but heading in the opposite direction, hanyou and miko found that the crowd was thinner at this end of the street, and it was much easier for them to hear each other.

"We _are_ both on the same page, right?" Kagome asked once she didn't have to raise her voice to be heard over the blaring music and the cheers of the crowd as they judged the ongoing costume contest.

"I fucking hope so," Inuyasha said before noticeably gulping, earning a giggle from the miko before his serious expression captured her full attention. "I love you," he blurted then, refusing to look away when she gasped as he met and held her eyes despite the explosion of heat he could feel staining his cheeks. "I've been afraid to tell you because I was afraid you'd think my feelings aren't real, that I just _think_ I love you because you're the first hu...woman I've gotten to know since my mother's death."

They both glanced around nervously at his near slip, but thankfully there weren't too many people around right where they were standing and nobody seemed to be paying them any attention.

He met her eyes again, then, and grabbed her hands, pouring his sincerity into every word, even as he lowered his voice to ensure they could not accidentally be overheard.

"I've had that same argument with myself, believe me," he nearly whispered. "But the truth is, if you were different, if you acted differently, treated me differently, if you weren't _you_ , then I wouldn't have fallen for you. I'm not so desperate for companionship that I'd compromise my principles. My mother taught me that I deserve to be treated like an equal, that society is wrong, and I'd never lower myself to be the lapdog of someone who agreed with society's views."

Glancing around briefly to make sure they still weren't attracting any unwanted attention, and they weren't, Inuyasha continued then.

"The only reason I finally allowed myself to accept how I feel about you is because I started to realize...hope...that you actually felt the same way. I told myself that even if you thought nothing could ever come of it, even if you were too afraid of the consequences, that you were even _capable_ of having those types of feelings for me proved to me that you really do see me no differently than anyone else, just like you've told me time and time again. If you didn't, if you honestly thought of me as nothing more than a talking version of Shiro, you wouldn't be attracted to me."

Looking into her eyes, it was hard for Inuyasha to read her because of her contact lenses, but as they gazed at one another Kagome could easily read the sincerity in _his_ eyes, and she knew he deserved just as much honesty from her in return.

"Let's go for a walk," she said first and foremost, as she headed down the street _away_ from the stage and costume contest, away from the throngs of people flitting to and fro between bars.

Coming upon the intersection that functioned as the end of the street, where barricades had been placed to close off the road and prevent cars from heading down that way, Kagome walked not towards the direction her car was parked in, but rather, she turned and headed down the main street, towards the fast food restaurants that stayed open all night.

She'd wanted the brief reprieve to gather her thoughts, but she'd also thought that they might as well take advantage of it being Halloween night to go grab a bite to eat, and do anything else Inuyasha wanted to do, without worrying about his appearance.

"You're right, of course. I love you, too," she confirmed after only a few brief moments of silence had passed between them. "How can I not? You're...you," she finished lamely, unable to explain, although based on the details of his own confession she suspected she didn't really need to explain. He understood.

Indeed he did, as he nodded at her words. Nevertheless, she tried to continue in a way that made sense to her own ears.

"I tried to deny my own feelings, too. You're right. But not because I'm afraid of what society would think or anything like that," she assured him then. "I was more just arguing with myself the same way you were, with yourself. Do I only love you because I've lived with you for a year? Because you're the only man I've ever known on a one-on-one basis and we see each other every day? I was trying to reason with myself, convince myself I was just confused and what I was feeling wasn't _really_ love."

Inuyasha couldn't help but grin that even now, as she explained her own emotional second guessing, she referred to him as a man. That she shouldn't harbor such feelings for a _hanyou_ hadn't been what her moral dilemma had been about, which she'd just made abundantly clear.

If it was possible, he loved her even more now than he had a moment ago.

She continued, then.

"But like you just said, I imagine that if you'd been _different_ , if our personalities had clashed, I wouldn't have fallen for you," she agreed. "I would never have backed out of my promise to let you live with me, kicking you out of what really is your own home," she assured him then, "but I'd have just thought of you as a roommate, and nothing more. My old high school friends who went off to college used to tell me stories. Roommates can definitely be someone you just put up with."

She laughed as she said that last part, thinking of some of the stories her old friends Yuka, Eri and Ayumi used to tell her, back when they'd stayed in touch more regularly.

Unfortunately the four of them had kind of drifted apart, even before she'd won the lottery, since she had opted not to go to college like the rest of them. Kagome had actually worried for a time that one or more of them would try to rekindle their friendship with ulterior motives after finding out about her winnings, but fortunately that hadn't been the case. They were all aware of her good luck, and that she'd been able to buy the house she'd always wanted, and they'd each told her at some point in time that they were happy for her, but they also had their own lives to live and career paths to follow and honestly, that was all right with Kagome. Truth be told she didn't feel as close to them anymore, either, and it was just as well, really. She'd never told any of them about Inuyasha, and if their relationship was about to head in the direction this conversation seemed to be implying it was, then that wasn't something she would have wanted to share with them, either.

Even though _yes_ , she did see Inuyasha as a man, and she'd been honest with him just now regarding what had been her reasoning behind her mental self-examination of her feelings for him, it would be stupid to ignore the elephant in the room, or inu-youkai, as it were. She wasn't stupid. Just because she didn't _care_ what society thought didn't mean she was _unaware_ of what society thought, or would think, if anyone ever found out they were together. It wasn't _illegal_ , like bestiality, because youkai were a step up above mortal animals in that their higher intelligence was acknowledged – which included their ability to consent to a relationship with a human – but she would be looked down on as a deviant.

"We have more to discuss, of course," she acknowledged then, "but we both know certain subjects shouldn't be discussed in public, so we'll have to have _that_ conversation when we get home."

Wishing to reassure him, though, as Kagome saw the nervous look in his eyes at that, the miko then added, "But if we both want the same thing, and it sounds to me like we do, then I _don't_ see a reason why we should deny ourselves."

That said, she leaned in and, before she could second guess herself, gave him a quick chaste peck of a kiss, directly on his lips.

He relaxed immediately, before a goofy grin curled up his still tingling lips.

"I'm looking forward to that 'conversation,'" he said, with a deliberate teasing edge to his voice as he waggled his eyebrows at her, which had Kagome blushing again while he chuckled

"Seriously, though," he added after clearing his throat, "we do need to have a serious conversation, and I really am looking forward to it." He visibly sniffed the air, and then pointed at the nearby fast food restaurant they were approaching, "In the meantime, those burgers up there smell fucking awesome. Way better now that I can smell things properly...now that I'm over that cold, so let's eat."

He added the part about a cold 'just in case' although they were close to the only ones on that part of the street at the moment. There were a few people walking several paces ahead of them, and also some other people several paces behind, but even while consciously trying to keep his ears as immobile as possible he could still hear bits and pieces of the others' conversations which was enough to let him know nobody was listening in on _their_ conversation.

"I agree, they smell awesome," Kagome agreed honestly, since even her human sense of smell was strong enough to pick it up. She couldn't even imagine what they must've smelled like to his nose but she was glad to have given him this opportunity.

She was also glad she'd brought her debit card along with a bunch of cash, because after depleting a good deal of her money paying cash for drinks she decided to use 'plastic money' to buy their little midnight snack.

A little snack that ended up consisting of a cheeseburger, small fries and a small soda for her, and _two_ cheeseburgers, large fries and a large soda for him. He was happy to get some liquid in his system that wasn't alcohol.

She had to take her fake fangs out to eat, of course, but to conceal the fact that Inuyasha did _not_ remove _his_ fangs they sat in a back corner booth with Inuyasha's back to the room, so even though nobody was staring at them in the first place, if someone just happened to glance in their direction they would not notice that Inuyasha still had his fangs in while eating. After they were done eating he made a show of pretending to reattach his fangs, his hands up at his mouth for a moment, while Kagome legitimately reattached her own, and then they were back out on the street again, both of them feeling victorious that so far their night out together was going off without a hitch.

They should have realized it was too good to last.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

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Walking down the street, just enjoying the cool but not overly cold night as they casually made their way back to the car, they were no longer talking about what they'd already agreed needed to wait until they could have a serious conversation at home, but there was a peacefulness between them from already getting the love confession part out of the way. They needed to discuss the logistics, the pros and cons, but Kagome had already told him she didn't see a reason why they couldn't be together, which was all Inuyasha needed to have him feeling happier and more content in that moment than he ever had before in his life, even when his mother had still been alive.

After all, his mother had taught him that upon her death he'd have to go out into the wild and live amongst the youkai, while also acknowledging that he might have a hard time of it, knowing he probably wouldn't be accepted as a hanyou. Even so, staying among humans hadn't seemed a viable option. Finding a romantic partner, with a human _or_ a youkai, had seemed like a downright impossibility, especially after he'd experienced first hand how the youkai of the world truly did _not_ accept him. For decades he'd figured his only shot at real companionship would be another hanyou, but they were so rare that during his few excursions into the wild it made sense that he'd never run across another one, male _or_ female.

Now, though, he lived with a human woman, whom he had fallen in love with and who also loved him in return. Nothing else mattered.

So the walk back to the car was peaceful, Inuyasha content to follow Kagome anywhere. If she had wanted to go back to the street party he would have agreed, although truth he told he was ready to go home, and thankfully so was she. Kagome had asked him, but Inuyasha had no desire to drink any more alcohol, and the miko couldn't because she was going to need to drive them home at _some_ point, so she needed to stay sober now. Their mutual light buzzes had served their purpose, with unplanned but fabulous results, and they had also successfully passed Inuyasha off as a costumed human. It was best not to press their luck.

It was just really bad timing that they'd decided to head back to the car _right_ when they had.

Kagome's quiet gasp was the first thing that alerted Inuyasha to there being a problem. When she stopped walking he stopped as well and looked at her in concern.

"What is it?" he asked her quietly. "Do you sense another youkai? I haven't smelled any, but if they're downwind-"

"Not youki, reiki," she explained quickly. "And not Miroku, I'd recognize him."

"Crap," Inuyasha grumbled under his breath. "Can we make a run for it?"

She shook her head.

"That might make things worse."

Indeed, if this person who was rapidly approaching sensed the two of them making a hasty retreat, they would probably assume Kagome was actually giving chase of some youkai or another and might even call in reinforcements.

"This is why I made sure to bring your card," Kagome stated then.

Nodding his understanding and agreement, Inuyasha's nose flared as the scent of approaching reiki reached his nose, his ears swiveling as they picked up the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. At least there was no one else around. They were on a residential side street and it was way past time for Trick-or-Treaters. Everyone was either in bed or at the nearby street party.

Standing their ground, they held their position and waited, and they didn't have long to wait at all before a woman dressed in full miko garb and armed with a quiver of arrows rounded the corner.

She paused in surprise at the sight of Inuyasha and Kagome standing together. She obviously hadn't been expecting to see the reiki user she'd sensed dressed identically to the hanyou she'd also sensed as she'd come running.

A presumption that was proven accurate when this new miko relaxed her posture somewhat and said, rather disapprovingly, "Well, this is...interesting."

"I apologize for our presence startling you," Kagome spoke up right away.

"That's one way of putting it," the miko replied as she continued to close the gap between them a bit more casually, the bow she'd been holding tightly in her left hand now slung nonchalantly across her back, beside her quiver.

Inuyasha tried his best to project an aura of calm as she approached, especially since she could actually sense his aura, so it wasn't just a figure of speech, but truth be told, this woman made him nervous as hell. If he'd encountered her by himself – not that he'd have ever been in the city by himself, but disregarding that fact for the time being – he'd have hightailed it out of there as fast as he could. It was only Kagome's presence by his side that made him feel safe in this other miko's presence.

While he would fiercely protect _Kagome_ with _his_ life in the heat of battle with a rogue youkai, knowing she felt the same way – in more ways than one, he'd just discovered – really meant a lot to him. As the new miko neared, Kagome was subtly shifting her stance to keep him slightly behind her, and it did not wound his pride to let Kagome protect him in such a way when he knew that in this situation she was in no danger herself. Unlike in a fight with a random monstrous oni that was putting countless human lives at risk, the hanyou knew that this new miko meant _his_ miko no harm.

Theoretically, she also now meant _him_ no harm, since it was obvious – in more ways than one – that he and Kagome were together. Not that he wanted the other miko to know that he and Kagome were _together_ , he just literally meant that it should be obvious from their peaceful behavior with one another, not to mention Kagome's choice in Halloween costume, that he was not just some random youkai she'd happened upon and was in need of assistance when it came to getting him out of the city.

Still, despite how obvious it should have been that that was the case, Inuyasha wasn't taking any chances, staying put right where he was, beside and slightly behind Kagome, as the miko-turned-hanyou said, "We were just patrolling incognito."

Hey, it was their story and they were sticking to it.

At least neither one of them were tipsy any longer.

"My name's Kagome. Inuyasha here is registered to me," Kagome added then, with a nod of her head in the real hanyou's direction. "I thought coming out here tonight might be a good idea, just in case there was a humanoid youkai taking advantage of the holiday to hunt in the crowds, and since I have Inuyasha I thought it would be a good idea to bring him along, since he can smell where a youkai _was_ while I can only sense where a youkai _is_. I also decided that dressing myself up to look like him would help put everyone's minds at ease, so that the regular population wouldn't suspect what he was, because so many people are understandably nervous around youkai."

"Is that so..." the other miko said as Kagome finished rambling off her explanation, the older woman looking them both up and down with an unmistakably judging expression, and while trying to maintain his blank face and peaceful attitude, like the well trained 'service youkai' he was supposed to be, it was all Inuyasha could do to not visibly shudder under the weight of this other miko's scrutiny.

It was actually really weird, because not only had Kagome's reiki never given him the creeps like this before, not even back when she'd thought he was a kitsune and had been using her ofuda against him, but Miroku's reiki hadn't really affected him like this, either. It took the hanyou a moment longer to realize that it wasn't really this other miko's _reiki_ that was giving him pause, but her _emotions_.

Generally speaking, his sense of smell worked _so much better_ than his sixth sense. Of course, on the busy streets and in the bars of the city he hadn't been able to filter much from the jumbled mess of _alllllll_ the smells. He would have instantly noticed a youkai's scent, true, but picking up a specific human's mood was a lot more difficult when there were tons of other humans all around. But now they were on a quiet side street, Kagome the only other human present, and not only could he smell this other miko's reiki – which was definitely _not_ tainted because the difference between a light and dark miko was as easy to tell apart as youki and jyaki – but he could also smell her emotional state, and while he could understand why Kagome thought the other miko must have been startled, frightened even, at the sudden discovery of what she must have thought was going to be a battle between a miko and a youkai, that was in fact not the case.

Not at all.

In fact, she actually seemed _disappointed_ to realize he wasn't a threat, as if she'd been looking forward to the prospect of killing a youkai in the predawn hours of All Saints Day, and had gotten her hopes up before rounding the corner and seeing he and Kagome together, and now she was disappointed because she'd realized this meant she didn't get to kill him.

 _That_ was why her presence raised his hackles. It was the natural reaction of any prey when faced with a predator, and his instincts were just as sharp as ever even despite living a relatively safe and sheltered life for the most part.

Even though he couldn't voice any of this to Kagome in that moment, he wasn't without other ways of communicating with her. He'd stood tall and proud in front of Miroku and Sango, showing no fear, so as this other miko started talking again, saying "I was not informed you would be here, and with your...youkai," Inuyasha took the opportunity to shift himself even further behind Kagome.

Kagome noticed the move immediately, of course, and turned to glance his way for a moment. He expressed his concern for her eyes only, then, as their gazes locked for a brief second, the look in his eyes easily revealing his apprehension.

"It's okay," she told him then, both still playing along, talking to him as if he were merely her service dog, and also letting him know in real life that it _was_ in fact okay, or rather everything would _be_ okay, because she understood, and she would not let her guard down around this woman.

She was also pretty sure that this other miko was Kikyou, although she couldn't be certain. Kagome hadn't missed how she'd failed to introduce herself back, after she'd told her her and Inuyasha's names. Kagome hadn't gotten a good look at Kikyou's face when she'd watched her on the news that one time, and that had been over six years ago, but generally speaking this miko resembled the one she'd seen shoot that snake youkai. Not all warrior miko were scheduled for their monthly training on the same weekend, so Kagome had never before met the woman standing before her, or a miko named Kikyou. That she'd never met the infamous Kikyou also had her thinking that this woman was she.

"I was not aware I had to inform anybody," Kagome said then, in regard to what this miko had said, which wasn't exactly true because she _was_ in fact aware that she did _not_ have to 'inform' anyone of her plan to bring Inuyasha into the city that night, as if she were doing an official Spiritual Forces operation and as such needed to file all the proper paperwork with HQ.

He was registered to her now. She was allowed to bring him out with her in public. She was a reservist, like all warrior miko, and while she was always 'on call' in the event of her services being needed, she was free to do whatever she wanted the rest of the time, save the days she had mandatory training, of course. But if she _chose_ to spend her free time wandering the streets patrolling for possible youkai threats that was just her being a good citizen, except that in the event that she _did_ find something, she was authorized to deal with it herself, like an off duty police officer taking the initiative to intervene if they noticed a robbery in progress. Except that was really a flawed analogy because while they were organized in a similar fashion to law enforcement or the military, they were usually little more than glorified animal control, so it wasn't really the equivalent to vicious criminals she'd been keeping an eye out for, but wild animals on the loose.

As for Inuyasha, Sango had already explained that registering him was basically akin to having a license for a mortal dog; a legal requirement as you were not allowed to own a dog without a license. So too was nobody allowed to own a youkai without registering it, and then of course certain species were prohibited. But while Kagome being a warrior miko and registering Inuyasha as her _service youkai_ meant that he was now legally allowed to assist her in battle, like Kirara, it still also more simply registered him as _hers_ , her pet, more or less, and Sango had told her that she often took Kirara with her whenever she was out running errands, her armor and weapons in the car, so that in the event of being called in to a youkai attack while out and about she wouldn't have to waste valuable time going home first.

So too was Kagome legally allowed to bring Inuyasha with her out into public, now, although neither of them were too keen on the idea of causing a stir for no reason. After all, Inuyasha couldn't transform into a cute little puppy she could just carry around in a bag slung across her body with most people being none the wiser. So he was perfectly content to spend most of his time at home, and in the event of Kagome being out of the house and getting a call, she could then call _him_ and have him meet her at the scene. But if she _wanted_ to bring him out with her somewhere, she was allowed to, and she didn't have to 'inform' anyone of what she was doing.

Kagome didn't bother arguing any of these points with the other miko, though. She just wanted to defuse the situation and get her and Inuyasha the hell out of there. So before Kikyou could chime back in again with any sort of retort to her comment about not knowing she'd needed to inform anyone, Kagome added, "Regardless, we're done for the night, now, so if you will excuse us."

That said, she gave a little bow and then glanced at Inuyasha to instruct him with her eyes and a subtle nod of her head to go ahead and turn around and start walking away. She would be sure to walk directly behind him, not that she honestly expected this miko to up and shoot Inuyasha in the back, even if she _was_ Kikyou, but it was enough for Kagome that he was nervous, and so she would do whatever she could to comfort him. Even though he was nearly a hundred years old, in some ways he was still like a child, or perhaps more accurately, he really was like a dog, and right now his frightened animal side was showing.

Didn't make her see him as any less of a man, of course. She obviously wasn't the only human to see youkai as people, either, or hanyou such as Inuyasha wouldn't even exist. So if his mother could love a full-blooded inu-youkai then her having feelings for one who _was_ in fact half _human_ and unquestioningly possessed a human soul wasn't really so much of a mystery or perversion in her mind.

Thinking of him as an equal _was_ unfortunately hard to conceal, though.

As she and Inuyasha turned to leave, the Kikyou chimed in with, "We? You speak of your youkai as though he were your companion."

Pausing, and clenching her jaw so hard her fake fangs fell off, Kagome spat her plastic fangs into her hand and tucked them into her pocket before turning back around, Inuyasha hesitantly pausing as well.

"Even if I were out here walking my dog...my _mortal_ dog..." she added when Kikyou snorted, "...I would have probably said _we_ , because animals are living, breathing beings," she said. She was done keeping up appearances, though. "However, _yes_ , you're right, I _do_ think of him as my companion. He's sentient, after all, and biologically half human. As far as I'm concerned Inuyasha should be treated like a person. I don't care what the law says."

Inuyasha's heart soared at Kagome's defense of him, and that she might earn this other miko's ire actually made him put his nervousness on hold in favor of being prepared to protect Kagome if it came to that. Yes, this miko could kill him – because while reiki itself wouldn't kill him an arrow in the heart while he was human certainly would – but if Kagome was in danger then his own life didn't matter.

Fortunately, the older miko was not angry over Kagome speaking back to her like that, instead merely looking unimpressed, and in fact her expression almost implied she pitied the younger miko's naivety.

"I suspected he might be a hanyou," she said after a heartbeat of silence passed between them. "The ears aren't necessarily a giveaway, as weaker youkai cannot form more perfect human guises, but his aura hints of a daiyoukai's power. It's carefully suppressed, but it's there, below the surface, and a true daiyoukai would not have such an appearance."

Done with her basic biology lesson, Kikyou then added, "You think that him being half human makes him more relatable, that he might harbor a loyalty to mankind, but the fact that he's hanyou actually makes him much more dangerous. If you aren't careful, he'll turn on you like a disloyal inugami."

Unable to take this anymore, his instincts still warning him not to lower his guard although his honor also demanded that he defend himself, and Kagome, Inuyasha kept his distance but chimed in with, "That's not true! No human has anything to fear from me, but _especially_ not Kagome."

Before it could sound too much like a declaration of love, he smartly added, "She is my handler and I am her inu, true. She is a warrior miko, and my duty is to fight alongside her and protect her from rogue youkai. But because I do _not_ have the brain of a lower animal, and I especially didn't start life out as a mortal dog that underwent a horrific transformation at the hands of its master, I am not _trained_ like an animal and I will _never_ turn on my owner."

Yes. Technically, legally, Kagome was his owner. He knew that. But he would never not be thrilled by that fact. Maybe part of it really _was_ his dog side, but his human half also understood that logically they'd both just done what'd needed to be done in order to give him any miniscule measure of protection in their world. Without being registered it was the humans' job to banish him to the forest, and so he'd agreed, he'd _chosen_ to _let_ Kagome register him as hers, because he knew she wouldn't have done so without his permission. Anything that allowed him to legally remain in that house, with her, he was all for. Getting to protect her during battle was an added bonus. His place was by her side, in whatever capacity she'd have him.

Of course, thoughts of their recent conversation, and what their relationship _might_ become in the near future, wanted to bring a smile to his lips, but he definitely knew better than to let anything like _that_ slip while facing off against this other miko.

Kikyou didn't waste time letting _her_ opinion be known, of course.

"You say that now," she said, addressing Inuyasha directly for the moment because even she had to admit that he _did_ have the intelligence of a human. "But what happens when your youkai blood is pushed beyond the limitations of your half mortal body and mind, and you transform into a bloodthirsty killing machine?"

The way Inuyasha's eyes widened in surprise and fear told Kikyou he hadn't even been aware such a thing was possible, and the discovery worried him, as well it should. The way Kagome's eyes narrowed, on the other hand, told Kikyou the younger miko was well aware that so-called 'daibanyou' like Inuyasha, a hanyou with a daiyoukau parent that'd inherited said parent's powerful youki, could get pushed over the edge and do their version of a transformation, which being trapped in a non-transforming body meant all that demonic energy had to go somewhere else, and she was _not_ happy about it being brought up in front of him. Before Kagome could say anything, though, either disapprovingly to Kikyou or reassuringly to Inuyasha, the former spoke back up again.

"You should, at the very least, make him a subjugation rosary," she said, addressing Kagome again. The younger miko was now certain that this other miko was indeed the Kikyou that Sango had told her about, the one she'd seen on the news. "Hanyou may deceivingly seem human at times, but push one too far and you have a raging youkai beast on your hands, as I'm sure you're aware," Kikyou added. "I'm not sure you're up to the task of keeping him under control without the added security of a rosary."

Kikyou shifted her eyes to meet Inuyasha's again for a moment, and saw genuine fear there. Fear of himself and what he was capable of.

 _Good, at least he is now aware,_ she thought, before refocusing her attention back on Kagome. _She should not have kept something like that a secret from him._

"Without subduing beads your only other alternative, should he transform during battle, would be to shoot him with one of your arrows, and you'd only get one shot because that would make you an enemy in his limited, one track mind."

"How dare you..." Kagome said then, her eyes narrowed even further, which considering she still had her demonic yellow contact lenses in at the moment was pretty spooky. She then turned her head and met Inuyasha's eyes. "Don't you dare listen to a single word of this nonsense," she instructed.

She then decided to be completely honest with Inuyasha, right there in front of Kikyou, because she had nothing to hide from anyone. Turning to face the hanyou, then, her back to Kikyou again, she said, "I was _going_ to tell you about this possibility once we started training together next month, or this month, rather, since it's past midnight, but the truth is you would have to be near death in order for something like that to happen, your youkai blood taking over in order to save your life. I don't plan on ever letting something like that happen, I don't plan on letting you get that _hurt,_ but _if_ you are, and you transform, then you _know_ I'm capable of making a barrier around myself and purifying with a touch. Perhaps _some_ miko can only channel their reiki into purifying arrows..." Oh yes, the dig was intentional. "...but I could safely run right up to you and purify you _just_ enough to reverse the transformation without you ever being able to lay a claw on me."

He visibly relaxed at her reassurances, but Kikyou wasn't finished.

"And what if, at your approach, he took off running in the opposite direction?" she asked, not at all appreciating what Kagome had implied about her own limitations as a miko.

Turning back to stare at the older miko, Kagome answered, "Well then I'd fire one of my blunt arrows at him, if I had to. The quick jolt would probably be enough to reverse the transformation, but if not, it'd at least stun him long enough for me to get to him and either purify him or slap some sealing ofuda on him, like I did with that kuma-youkai.

Kikyou's eyes widened in surprise at the mention of blunt arrows and the kuma-youkai. She'd watched that incident on the news, but it made sense that she hadn't recognized Kagome considering her Halloween costume. They were in the middle of the big city, after all. There were loads of people in the city and Kikyou had no way of knowing Kagome wasn't from there, or where she _was_ from. Kagome smirked as she saw the recognition in Kikyou's eyes.

Inuyasha, meanwhile, had completely calmed down at everything Kagome had said. It was clear to him she'd already thought it all through, and even if he couldn't scent her honesty he would have believed her when she swore she had already been planning on discussing this all with him. He trusted her explicitly, and so even though he was still disturbed to learn that he was biologically capable of transforming under dire circumstances he had full confidence that Kagome would not allow him to harm her or anyone else if he ever did.

"So you're _that_ new miko," Kikyou said then.

Kikyou had actually been relieved when she'd first heard that the small border town now had its own residential warrior miko, because she did not like having to drop whatever she was doing to drive a half hour to the rescue of a town that had its own Shinto shrine. As far as she was concerned, _somebody_ from that shrine family should have already been registered with the Spiritual Forces long before now. But there was no point in dwelling on the past and should haves. She also had to reluctantly admit that this young girl child of a miko standing before her was a powerful little thing. If Inuyasha really was registered, which she'd assume he was because young or no, surely she was smart enough to not go flaunting her hanyou in public if he weren't legal, then that meant that HQ had deemed her powerful enough to keep such a powerful being under control.

"Yup, that's me," Kagome replied.

Kikyou nodded her head in Kagome's direction. The best the younger miko could hope to get as far as a bow went from her superior. Kikyou did not have a higher rank than Kagome, but she considered herself superior to the foolishly dressed young miko nonetheless.

"That was inarguably an impressive display, regarding the kuma-youkai," Kikyou admitted then. She couldn't ignore the younger miko's obvious talents when she'd seen them for herself live on the news.

She still thought it was a mistake not making the hanyou wear a subjugation necklace, though. Transformations or no, that hanyou needed to know his place. With human-like emotions he might one day think to overstep his bounds. Not necessarily an unreasonable notion from his perspective considering his own mother had likely been the human parent. A female daiyoukai playing with human men would have probably killed the whelp. If not, he would have undoubtedly been raised to act and think like an inu, and would not now be loyal to a miko of all things. Being raised by a 'loving' human mother, on the other hand, could have planted the false notion in his head that other humans besides his mother could also care for him as if he were human himself. Couple that with the fact that this young miko had admitted to letting his higher intelligence affect her judgment when it came to how she viewed him, and he could mistakenly perceive her 'companionship' for something more than just a woman acknowledging her demonic dog could think and act like a person.

That Inuyasha already had such feelings for Kagome, and that Kagome returned those feelings wholeheartedly, was fortunately not on Kikyou's radar. Kagome suspected as much from her reaction to them so far, that Kikyou did not suspect anything along those lines, and she wanted to _keep_ it that way.

"Thank you," she answered then, in reply to Kikyou's compliment of her handling of the kuma. "If you will excuse us," she quickly added before Kikyou could say anything else. She offered the older miko her own bow, deeper than the last time, Inuyasha immediately following suit this time because if his 'master' was bowing to the other miko then he figured he sure as hell better as well, for appearances' sake. "We really must be going now," Kagome said as she straightened back up.

"Yes, of course," Kikyou acknowledged dismissively. "I bid you good evening, then."

Turning, she headed back in the direction from whence she came, glad the other two were headed in the opposite direction.

What Kagome and Inuyasha didn't know was that Kikyou hadn't been out and about doing her own patrol when she'd sensed them. She had been at home, although not yet asleep. Surprised, but also with her adrenaline pumping because no way was she going to let some rogue youkai cause havoc in _her_ city, she'd thrown on her miko garb and grabbed her arrows and been out the door just a few short minutes after sensing his aura go by. Since youki could be sensed by a reiki user from slightly greater distances than reiki, she hadn't sensed the other miko until she'd already been en route, but she had indeed originally thought the other miko was also pursuing the youkai, until she'd rounded the corner and had immediately realized that wasn't the case. Knowing the truth, now, Kikyou didn't particularly want this miko and hanyou duo knowing where she lived, but fortunately they'd been the next block over, causing her to run past a few houses and turn down the cross street before rounding the corner to come back up the other street.

As Kagome and Inuyasha turned down a different side street to head one more street over _away_ from Kikyou's street, and their auras faded away into nothing in her mind, the older miko merely shook her head at herself, at the absurdity of all that had just transpired. She would definitely be double checking with HQ that that Kagome person had indeed registered her hanyou, although she was pretty confident she'd find that she had. She momentarily contemplated seeing about getting her monthly training schedule changed to match whatever Kagome's schedule was, so that she'd be able to test the girl, and her hanyou, and make sure they were really up for the task of being a human/youkai team unit, but after a moment she thought better of it because honestly, Kikyou had no desire to see either of them again if she could help it.

The feeling was mutual.

As Kagome and Inuyasha made it back to her car without further incident, they breathed a duel sigh of relief when they sat down inside the vehicle and closed the doors.

"Well _that_ was an experience I hope never to repeat," Inuyasha blurted as soon as he felt secure enough to voice his opinion freely.

"Likewise," Kagome admitted easily.

Pulling down the sun visor and sliding open the makeup mirror, Kagome clicked on the car's internal lights for a moment and, after popping off her press-on nails and dumping them into the cup holder for now, fiddled in the mirror with removing her contact lenses. Her eyes had been bothering her for a little while now, but that had been the least of her worries while standing off against that other...really _irritating_ miko that showed up to potentially ruin what had otherwise been a fabulous night.

Putting her contact lenses in their container and just putting that in the cup holder for now, as well, Kagome blinked a few times and then glanced Inuyasha's way.

"Let's just get home, but then, we've still got lots to discuss." Smirking, she added, "But nothing that's got to do with Kikyou. Hopefully we won't ever have to seeor think about that woman ever again."

"No argument here," he agreed, on both counts.

He had so much he wanted to say to Kagome, and then yet at the same time, his mind was drawing a total blank. He'd rehearsed his lines so many times that now, he was afraid that saying any of the stuff he had memorized would somehow sound insincere. He'd just try his best to wing it, he supposed, while also letting her take the lead.

Of course, Kagome's mind was in just as much of a jumbled mess. This whole thing was her fault, she knew, because she'd stupidly gone and danced with him in a provocative manner. But hadn't she done that on purpose, just for that very reason? Sort of like hurrying up and making yourself dial a number before you have time to think about it, when you're apprehensive about making a phone call, and then you have the time of listening to it ring to realize okay, now you're really doing it. So too had Kagome gotten a quick 'screw it, just for got it' notion in her head, when she'd decided to dance with him _like that_. Now she was facing the consequences, but that was a _good_ thing as far as the miko was concerned. She loved him, he loved her, and if this whole thing was her fault then she'd never been so happy to take all the blame.

She couldn't wait to get home.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

.

The drive home was quiet, but it was a relatively peaceful silence, hanyou and miko each lost in their own thoughts but no longer with the added feelings of longing and despair that came with the belief that their romantic leanings were not or _could_ not be returned. Instead, they were both fighting the desire to allow their fantasies to take flight, traveling down a _good_ path of 'what if' that came from realizing their dreams were no longer impossibilities.

Inuyasha, especially, had the slowly dawning realization that Kagome not only returning his feelings but telling him she saw no reason for them _not_ to be together as a result, meant that a _physical_ relationship with her was not only possible, but implied. He blushed crimson at the thought and turned his head to look out the car window in order to hide it.

He wasn't naive. He knew what sex was, and he knew exactly how he had come into being, although his mother had thankfully spared the intimate details when she'd told him the story of her and his father. She had made sure he was well educated, which had included 'medical' books with loads of pictures that had been good enough fodder for a young imagination. He'd aged as a human child until hitting puberty, and then he'd had an extended adolescence, barely starting to look more like a young man in his early twenties over the last couple of decades, so he'd had _ample_ time to get to know his own body _quite_ well over the years, and after his failed attempts at being accepted by other youkai he had thought he was doomed to never have a partner when it came to such things.

Not even when he'd first met Kagome had he thought anything along those lines, because when he'd _first_ met her, as pretty as she was, he'd just been amazed that she was willing to be so civil to him. He'd definitely been attracted to her, but just in an acknowledging she was attractive sort of way. He'd have never in a million years believed anyone if he'd been told a year ago that he and Kagome would fall for each other, and have a Halloween love confession of all things.

There was a _big_ difference between recognizing a hanyou had human intelligence and treating him like a person, and developing _feelings_ for him and feeling attracted to him physically, after all. Even after he'd started to become aware of his _own_ feelings for _her_ he hadn't even suspected, at first, that she could ever possibly feel the same way. And then even after he _had_ started to wonder if she might possibly feel something deeper for him in return, he'd still have never in a million years believed that she would actually be willing to _act_ on those feelings, considering society's view.

But believing it couldn't possibly happen hadn't stopped the fantasies, of course.

Oh yes, he'd had fantasies.

That he could ever possibly have _that_ kind of a relationship with Kagome, after he'd started to fall for her, had become both the ultimate desire and the most forbidden of sins. Over the last few months he'd also taken to watching _those_ channels on the TV on occasion, when Kagome wasn't home, of course. Once he'd realized he was in love with her, even while mentally wrestling with himself, trying to be logical, to analyze, to determine whether or not he really _loved_ her or if it was just infatuation, that emotional confusion hadn't hindered his unconscious mind one bit. He'd started to _dream_ of her, literally, forcing him to 'take matters into his own hands' more frequently in the past six months than he had in the past eight _decades_.

Those old fashioned medical texts hadn't fueled the fire the way his feelings for Kagome did, after all. He usually lived out those fantasies in the shower, letting the sound of the water muffle his moans while the evidence of his passion washed down the drain, but on occasion, when she wasn't home – and neither were the neighbors – he'd lie nude in bed, Shiro locked out, imagining she was on top of him, or even more simply, that his hand was _her_ hand, as she explored him under the guise of being curious about hanyou physiology. He would be her experiment in his mind, letting her do to him whatever she liked, and he'd howl his release while pretending she found the whole thing oh so fascinating.

After daring to hope she _did_ feel something for him in return, even while genuinely believing that _if_ she did, she'd never actually be willing to act on it in real life, his fantasies had begun revolving around that desired impossible outcome, that she would proclaim her love for him and tell him she didn't give a damn what society thought.

So as it would turn out, his fantasies had revolved around what'd actually just happened, tonight, in real life.

It was real.

Tonight had _not_ been a dream, and he was still having a hell of a time wrapping his mind around that fact. He couldn't decide if he wanted to throw Kagome down when they got home and passionately have his way with her, or run and hide, locking himself in his bedroom, but he figured the sensible thing to do would be something in the middle, neither acting on his desires nor running away from them. They needed to have a mature conversation.

He was both terrified and looking forward to it at the same time, but at least his fear didn't come from a fear of rejection. Just of the unknown.

Kagome, meanwhile, was less preoccupied with thinking about how her supposedly unholy sexual fantasies could now possibly, eventually come to pass, and instead she was focused on the little things that could come from them being in a romantic relationship, like cuddling with him on the couch while watching TV, or rubbing the ears she'd had to resist touching for a whole year now. Of course, she had to admit she _was_ curious about the _rest_ of him, what she'd had to use her imagination for over the last year. Early on in living together, because they shared the one bathroom, she'd established the logical ground rule of always leaving the door open when the room wasn't in use and always knocking when it was closed, although she also always locked it whenever she was in there, just in case. As a result, they'd gone a whole year without any sort of sitcom-esque moment of either of them accidentally seeing the other one naked.

She realized he might not look 'fully human' but honestly, she didn't care. And while she was naturally curious, she wasn't in a hurry to jump into bed with him. She would let that part of their relationship progress naturally. Now that they both knew the other person shared their feelings they could allow themselves to act on those feelings instead of consciously trying to ignore and conceal them. She figured nature would take its course. Of course, that was assuming he shared her sexual desire, because romantic love and sexual attraction didn't automatically have to go hand in hand, but if his comment and waggled eyebrows after her little peck of a kiss was any indication then he did indeed share _those_ feelings of hers, as well.

Arriving back at the house after only about a fifteen minute drive, because traffic was low that time of night and she'd hit all green lights, they headed inside together and were greeted by an anxious Shiro, the pup having been confused by them being gone for so long. The dog didn't need to be let out since for overnight he had a potty pad in the kitchen, and thanks to Inuyasha's rudimentary ability to communicate with the lower canine Shiro never messed anywhere else in the house, but it had thrown off the dog's routine to find himself alone in the house for so long and he was _definitely_ glad both of his masters were home.

Kagome giggled as Shiro whimpered and whined and jumped and yipped and wagged his whole butt instead of just his tail at the sight of them.

"Sorry we were gone so long!" she said to the akita mix that then stood up on his hind legs, his front paws against her chest as he attacked her face with kisses. She'd bent down a little bit to grant the dog better access, of course.

"Hey now, that's my girl you're kissing all over," Inuyasha joked, and Kagome's heart soared at the lightheartedness of his tone. Yes, she _was_ his, now, and he was hers, in ways far beyond what his registration stated.

"I gotta get out of this wig," she said as she glanced the hanyou's way while standing back up straight and forcing Shiro to cease his assault, her blue-gray eyes smiling as they met happy golden yellow. "My scalp is starting to itch. But then, we should have our conversation."

Inuyasha merely nodded, and followed Kagome upstairs, Shiro bounding up right behind them both. He used the restroom first while she went straight into her bedroom to change, locking poor Shiro out in the process, and then heading into his own room to change into some pajama bottoms and a t-shirt for the night he then kept Shiro entertained, switching off between belly scratches and tug-o-war games with various articles of clothing until Kagome's bedroom door reopened and, after briefly using the restroom including to brush her teeth, she then appeared in his doorway, dressed in her own flannel pajama bottoms with matching long sleeve top. The outfit was unflattering, in the strictest sense, and her hair was an absolute mess, her eyes a bit red from wearing the contacts for so long, while her nails all had traces of glue on them from the press-on claws.

She'd never looked prettier.

"Hey," he greeted, a goofy grin revealing the tips of his fangs.

"Hey. So..." she began as she entered and unabashedly had a seat on the edge of his bed, tucking her legs up underneath herself, while he sat in the middle of the mattress up near his headboard. "I don't know what you specifically had in mind, in terms of our relationship, and obviously like...we can't ever legally get married since you're a hanyou, but...but I don't want just some casual fling. This is _your home_ , and this is _my_ home, we live together, and barring some unforeseen disaster we should live together our...I mean my entire life..."

She looked down as she made her correction on that point, prompting the hanyou to reach forward and gently hook an index finger under her chin, lifting her face until their eyes met.

"Hey...don't you think about your mortality, you hear me? You're young right now, and I _won't_ let anything happen to you before your time. You're going to die an _old_ woman, just like my mother did, and at that time I want to be able to look back on a lifetime of happy memories spent with you. I don't want something casual, either. If we do this, I don't think I'd ever be able to handle us breaking up later on. If you'd never fallen for me, or told me we couldn't be together because of what I am, and wanted to pursue finding yourself a human man, I would have let you. I would have tried to be happy for you, and I'd have been nice to whichever man you chose, who might've one day fathered your kids. But if _we're_ actually going to be together, you 'n' me, then there's no way I could let you go after that, to go be with somebody new. There's no way."

Thinking about it a moment, he cringed, then amended, "Well...unless it was what you _really_ wanted, because I would never force you to stay with me against your will."

"It's _not_ what I want, or will ever really want," Kagome answered then, without hesitation. The look in her eyes was sincere as she told him, "I want to spend my life with _you_ , in _that_ way. As my boyfriend. Partner. Mate. Whatever you want to call it. I don't know yet how or when to tell my family, or what they'll say. I wasn't worried about them just finding out about your existence, but I've never told my mom anything about my stronger feelings for you. I don't know how much she might suspect and just hasn't said anything in her little motherly way. I'm going to have to tiptoe around the subject, I think, to test the waters. But even if she, or Jii-chan, told me they downright _forbad_ it, you and I being together, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't let that stop me."

His eyes widened at the seriousness of her words. She reached out with both hands to grasp both of his, holding his hands in a tight grip as she pleaded with her eyes for him to understand.

"I _love_ you. I can't help it. And it's not illegal. Nobody can _do_ anything to me if people find out we're sleeping together."

He blushed as she said that part, so matter-of-factly, but blushing a bit herself she nevertheless continued.

"I understand why your mother decided to keep you a secret, and I _do_ think we should try to keep our relationship a secret, too, except maybe for my family, if they'll accept us, but while your mother had a genuine fear of you being taken away if you were discovered, of being crated off by the taijiya and dumped in the forest like she'd been caught with an illegal wild animal as a pet, I've registered you, now. I don't know if she knew she could have done the same or not, or even if she really _could_ have or not. I didn't even think about it until Sango said something because I'd just automatically assumed such registration was for beings like her nekomata and that hanyou couldn't be registered. And maybe a regular person _can't_ register a hanyou as a pet, because maybe they'd be deemed too dangerous. I'd have to look into it. It probably hadn't been an option for her, or I'm sure she would have done so. It's probably because I'm a miko, and a powerful one at that, that they'd allowed me to register you as my _service youkai_ specifically, as a warrior miko, which then by default also makes you mine just generally speaking. But either way, you're mine now, and nobody can take you away from me. We should keep our intimate relationship a secret, but if it somehow gets found out, that won't void your registration, and I can't be arrested because it isn't a crime, it's just considered a perversion, but this is the 21st century and people aren't arrested for being perverts with _consenting_ partners, and youkai status within our world acknowledges your intelligence and therefor your ability to consent."

"But what if people _do_ find out? How would it affect you working with them if say Sango and Miroku even just suspected we were secretly together?" Inuyasha asked, worried that one day he'd accidentally give away his true feelings, like if Kagome were hurt in battle and he cried out her name. He'd try not to, of course, but he couldn't make any promises. Sometimes in the heat of the moment he didn't always think things through clearly.

He understood what she was saying, in that nobody could take him away from her, and that she couldn't be arrested, or even fined, because it wasn't considered an actual crime, but that didn't mean working with the taijiya wouldn't become hella awkward if everyone looked down on her as being some sort of sexual deviant.

Kagome understood his concern, and shared it, hence her insistence that they should try to keep their relationship a secret, but she wasn't going to let a fear of possibly being discovered one day dissuade her from being with him. Honestly, in her mind, if she lost friends over it then they weren't really her friends to begin with. She would choose him over her _family_ if her mother made her choose, so she'd most certainly choose him over a career, not that she suspected she would be kicked out of the Spiritual Forces over something like that, because she was a powerful miko and they needed her.

"What I do with my service youkai after hours and behind closed doors is nobody's business," she said. "Seriously though," she added then, "we should try our best not to let anyone find out, but if they do, they do. I'm not going to _deny_ it, because I'm not ashamed. I don't give a damn what society thinks."

Damn, she actually said it. Inuyasha wanted to pinch himself, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"I want us to be together," Kagome continued then. "It's not like I'm rushing into anything. I've known you for a whole year now, and I've loved you for the last few months, at least. I can't say exactly when it happened, but now, I can't imagine ever not feeling this way. So I don't think we need to 'take things slowly' and see how we feel. We already _know_ how we feel. I have zero interest in trying to date anyone else, of ever trying to find myself a human man. How can I when I already love you? That wouldn't be fair to _anybody_. If you were human, and you'd proposed, asked me to marry you in addition to declaring your love, I would have said yes. I don't need to 'date' you first, and in a way we've been going on monthly dates for the last ten months already, anyway. I'm sure you allowed yourself those same dreams, just as I did, pretending our outings on new moon nights were romantic getaways."

He nodded, not about to deny it.

"I will be happy, just you and me," she continued. "I won't ever regret what could have been, because I'll never regret falling in love with you."

Inuyasha couldn't stand sitting even just a foot away from her any longer, and at those words he scooted himself a bit forward on the bed, to close a bit of the gap between them, before then reaching out and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her into a solid embrace.

While they'd never been afraid to touch each other, they'd always both actively tried to keep it on the prudish side of platonic. They'd certainly never hugged before, because they'd both been afraid they wouldn't be able to hide their true feelings from the other if they did, and in that moment they each let their feelings for the other scream loud and clear as Kagome melted into him and Inuyasha tightened his hold.

Tucking his nose into her hair, he inhaled her scent, letting the soothing fragrance wash over him. Kagome concentrated on the feel of his unnaturally strong body, his protective arms holding her close. Resting her head on his shoulder, he leaned his head down and rested his cheek against the top of her head, and Kagome had never felt more safe or secure in her entire life. She could just stay like that forever if it weren't for the fact that she was so tired. In fact, if she didn't pull herself away from him she was likely to fall asleep like that, and while she doubted he would object she'd still feel embarrassed.

"I should probably get to bed. I can barely keep my eyes open..." she murmured drowsily.

"Stay," he beseeched. "Just for tonight. Not to _do_ anything," he added, although she hadn't stiffened at his invitation or given any indication the idea made her nervous. "Just let me hold you."

"Mmm...tempting," she conceded. "But then I'll probably want you to hold me every night."

Repeating what he'd said when she'd teased about always wanting him to cook her dinner on the weekends she trained, he replied with, "That would not be a burden."

"Then you've got yourself a deal."

Shiro, who'd also been on the bed this whole time but had been politely quiet in the face of what was obviously an important conversation between his two masters, happily bounced around and made both the hanyou and miko laugh when they rearranged themselves to lie down together in Inuyasha's bed and the akita mix went crazy upon realizing he got to have both masters together in the same bed and didn't have to choose which person to sleep with.

And of course the overgrown puppy planted himself right between them, on top of the blanket.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" Inuyasha teased, before adding a dog woof that told Shiro to _move_ in no uncertain terms.

The dog immediately obeyed, moving down towards the foot of the bed to lay between their feet. That was all right with the pair as Inuyasha just curled his legs up a bit as he got into position on his right side, facing Kagome, his feet pointing away from Shiro. He then had Kagome roll over onto her right side, as well, and then pulled her into a spooning embrace. He could hear her heart going a mile a minute, but Kagome wasn't nervous that anything she wasn't quite ready for yet was about to happen – especially since if it _were,_ she was more than ready – but more simply than that, she was still just in shock that this was _real_ , that all that had been said tonight had really been said and now, she and Inuyasha were a couple, and were lying in bed together, his arms wrapped around her.

Sleep came easily for the miko, in part because she was so tired, but also because she was so content. Her nights of lying awake while stressing over her feelings for Inuyasha were over now, and it was the best feeling in the world.

Likewise, the hanyou couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so at peace. He honestly wasn't sure if he _ever_ had. A part of him was still a jumbled mess, as he thought about when his newfound relationship with Kagome would take the next step, but he wasn't stressing over it. It was more just anticipation. Gone now was that little reminder in the back of his head that his fantasies were only that. Gone was the resigned acceptance that nothing would ever happen along those lines in real life. Gone was his depression over longing for something he'd _thought_ he knew he could never really have, and in its place was the tranquility of allowing nature to take its course when he knew it _would_ one day happen, because _she_ wanted it, too.

It was with those peaceful thoughts in his mind that the hanyou drifted off to sleep, as well, lulled by the rhythm of Kagome's even breathing and her soothing scent filling his nose.

Fin...for now…

(Third installment will be this year's Christmas fic.)


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